


A Question of Choice

by Varkelton



Series: Consent [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Attempted Rape, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-21
Updated: 2010-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:49:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varkelton/pseuds/Varkelton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after being stricken with an incubus-like curse, the boys are building an ever-strengthening partnership out of the wreckage of its intense sexual requirements. Now, the ongoing physical relationship the sex demon forced on them has become a comfort to them both, and Sam's even finding ways to use the power they generate to make them better hunters. Of course, Sam can't always control his powers, and he's still having flashbacks to the captivity and torture that started it all. Dean's going out of his mind trying to help, but his brother's not the easiest guy to read, and Sam is definitely not in a talking mood. How far are they willing to go to make things right again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was so lucky to get an absolutely amazing artist this year!!! Her awesome art can be found here: [](http://caelith.livejournal.com/profile)[**caelith**](http://caelith.livejournal.com/) 's **[Art](http://caelieth.livejournal.com/171819.html)**.  
>  Make sure to check out the vid below, and really, really, don't forget to leave her some love - she totally deserves it!
> 
>   
> 
> 
>   
> _Art by Caelieth - **Click picture to view trailer video!**_   
> [   
> ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hv6qvHiDPk)   
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> **Rating:** NC-17  
>  **Warnings/Spoilers:** Issues of rape, with a heavy emphasis on recovery and a decided lack of easy fixes. Dub-con. Graphic violence/gore. Attempted rape (Well, sort of – demons are evil and like to push people’s buttons). Established relationship. Major Hurt/Comfort and a teensy... _tiny_... bit of angst. ::cough::  
>  **Disclaimer** : Do you suppose if I asked sweetly, the boys would give themselves to me? Yeah, I know, not after they read my stories. _Darn!_ Labor of love. No profit.  
>  **Dedication** : Dedicated to my sister, [](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/profile)[**rivestra**](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/) , because I love her. And beta’d by my sister [](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/profile)[**rivestra**](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/) , because I don’t love her that much. ;) Without her, this fic would never have seen the light of day.  
> Written for **[](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/profile)[**spn_j2_bigbang**](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/)**.  
>  **Betas** : My darling [](http://snarkgoddess.livejournal.com/profile)[**snarkgoddess**](http://snarkgoddess.livejournal.com/) , whom I love dearly because she poured countless hours into this story even though it is sooo not her preferred genre. The lovely [](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/profile)[**rivestra**](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/) , who continues to wait oh so patiently for the story that this was supposed to be. The awesome [](http://locknkey.livejournal.com/profile)[**locknkey**](http://locknkey.livejournal.com/) , who I met during last year's big bang and am now lucky enough to call my friend.  
> ***  
>  **Author’s Note** : This story goes AU after the Season One episode, _Dead Man’s Blood_. Events are canon through this episode, but afterwards, multiple leads cause the boys to separate from John after all, and now nine months have passed. The events in _Salvation_ and _Devil’s Trap_ never happened.
> 
> This story is written to stand alone, but it is also the sequel to **_[An Issue of Consent](http://varkelton.livejournal.com/11848.html)_**. Click [**here**](http://varkelton.livejournal.com/11848.html) if you would like to read the entire verse.

**Prologue**

 **  
_THEN…_   
**

_The force of the blast rips the creature away from Sam, pulling him off-balance and causing the chains around his neck to tighten. He gags, feebly trying to right himself, but his reserves are gone and he sags down, letting the chain dig deeply into the bruised skin of his throat. He can’t get any air, but he doesn’t really want to breathe anymore, anyway. He waits for oblivion to come. He needs this to be over._

 _His eyes are streaming with tears against the blinding glare of the room, even though he’d slammed his eyelids closed as soon as the light flared. Strong hands lift him back up, tearing a surprised, ragged, “No,” from his mouth in protest. They support him enough to ease the constriction around his throat, and his traitorous body takes in a gasping breath._

 _“Sammy?” The word is harsh and frantic and **Dean** … Sam’s chest squeezes painfully with panic. Dean shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t see him chained up like a helpless animal, shouldn’t see him with his own come freshly dripping down his chest and the creature’s still trickling out of his ass. Dean joins him on the mattress anyway, causing the chains to constrict once more. Sam coughs weakly against them, and Dean pulls in close, and only holds him tighter when Sam tries to flinch back._

 _“Just go…” Sam grits out, but Dean doesn’t seem to hear, a steady stream of profanity slipping from his lips as he grips Sam tightly with one trembling hand and pulls at the chains with the other._

 _“Fuck,” Dean swears angrily, louder than his previous words and cutting the stream up short. There’s a slight pause, and then Dean adds in a broken voice, “I’m sorry, Sammy.” The words sound wounded, and Sam has a moment to wonder dazedly why Dean would feel the need to apologize before Dean lets him go and the chains tighten, cutting his air off completely once again. Sam feels the pressure building fast, and his head is ready to explode when everything suddenly fades for several blissful moments._

 _He comes back to himself in a rush to find Dean’s lips over his, breathing into him. His dick surges to life as he presses up against the offering, overwhelmed with a need so sudden and so intense he aches with it._

 _He needs Dean more than he’s ever needed anything in his life, but Dean pushes him down and pulls back, breaking their connection. “God, Sam, no. I don’t need… god, do you even recognize me?” Dean’s mumbling doesn’t make much sense, and Sam would follow Dean’s retreating lips, but his hands are still bound and his body is too broken for him to move._

 _“Please,” Sam whispers, and when Dean bends close, Sam abruptly realizes that he can make out the blurry edges of Dean’s form. The unacknowledged suspicion that he might be blind has been sitting like a weight on his soul for days. A sob tears itself from his chest in relief. Sam forces his eyes open a little further, despite the fiery burn._

 _“Dean… can see you,” Sam gasps out. Dean fights with the bindings around Sam’s hands, and Sam struggles weakly, wanting to help, desperate to **touch**. His sight is getting stronger by the second, accompanied by the racing of his heart, and he feels dizzy, frantic to pull Dean in close, to drink in the taste and smell of Dean’s warm skin, to merge their bodies together until he can no longer tell where he ends and Dean begins._

 _The realization that something is wrong crashes through him, this need, this desire for Dean…for his brother…it isn’t him. It’s not…_

 _Helpless rage boils in his gut. The creature **did** something to him, a parting gift so he can’t forget, can’t just move on now that it’s all over. A choking sob rips itself from his throat, bitter and churning, and he can’t do this anymore. It won’t ever stop. The creature dug its claws into him, and it’s never going to let him go. His heart is racing, his breaths are shallow, and he can feel his body giving out, finally giving up, and he welcomes it, needs the promised oblivion that death will bring._

 _The bindings around his wrists yank apart, but he barely feels it. “Dean,” he whispers, knowing his death will devastate his brother, but he has nothing left to fight it with. “’M sorry…”_

 _“No!”_

 _He hears Dean’s rage and terror in the simple denial, but he can’t hold on anymore. A sharp, stabbing pain begins in his chest and arcs through his body. He’s dimly aware of Dean clinging to him as he convulses, as he slips away with Dean’s frantic cries chasing him into the grey…_

  
**  
  
**   
**Chapter 1**

  
 **  
_NOW…_   
**

“Dean…”

The whimpered sound tore at Dean’s soul, lost and plaintive, and Dean pulled Sam in closer, wrapping himself protectively around his brother and pressing a kiss to the top of Sam’s head.

“I’m here, Sammy,” Dean whispered, hoping his voice would soothe the nightmares away. This was the third time tonight. Not that Dean was sleeping much anyway, what with the harsh glare of the oversized bedside lamp almost bright enough to blind him.

Sam, _afraid of the dark_.

That just didn’t make sense in any universe… and anyway, it had been months since the attack. Wasn’t Sam supposed to be getting better by now, not worse?

Sam cried out again, soft and wounded, so Dean pulled him in tighter and slipped his knee between his brother’s legs to nudge at the underside of Sam’s balls. As fucked up as it was, Dean’s touch was the only thing that ever seemed to penetrate Sam’s dreams. Intimacy the only thing that ever helped Sam escape their grip. Dean brushed another kiss against Sam’s hair, slipping his hand down to run along Sam’s stomach and graze the top of Sam’s dick.

“It’s me, Sammy, just me…” he murmured softly.

Sam’s breaths became more labored until gasping, harsh coughs interrupted the frantic fight to draw in air. Dean raised his voice, “Come on, Sammy, wake the hell up…” but Sam didn’t react; the dreams had him really good tonight. This wasn’t working. Dean loosened his grip and started to struggle up to sitting. It was probably time to try shaking his brother awake, even though Dean hated the disoriented fear that usually caused.

Sam suddenly went rigid in his arms, and Dean froze halfway up, his breath catching.

“Dean?” Sam gritted out through tightly clenched teeth, his eyes open wide.

“Right here, Sam,” Dean replied, easing back down and pulling Sam close once more.

“Jesus fuck,” Sam breathed out angrily. He grabbed Dean’s hand and pressed it back down against his dick. It throbbed hard against Dean’s palm, full probably to the point of aching.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you, I’ve always got you,” Dean soothed, despite his own rage towards the creature that always welled up in the face of Sam’s pain. Sam was sweaty and flushed, and the fear that his anger was masking somehow made Sam look a lot younger than 23 years.

Sam entwined shaking fingers with Dean’s, and Dean ran his hand down and then back up Sam’s long length. “Dean, I need you, please,” Sam begged quietly.

Sam’s eyes grew distant, and Dean could tell the memories were still playing out in his brother’s head. Dean had killed the creature dead with the colt, but he wasn’t sure it would ever really be gone. If Dean could find a way to permanently exorcise the fucker from Sam’s head, he’d do it in a heartbeat, but for now Sam would have to make due with simple distraction.

Dean trailed wet, possessive kisses down the side of Sam’s face and Sam arched into them, offering himself to Dean. “Make me yours, Dean,” Sam moaned, and turned onto his back, letting his legs fall apart in invitation.

Dean moved on top of his brother, lowering himself gently between the vee of Sam’s legs and locking his eyes with Sam’s. He let their chests glide together as he took Sam’s wrists and pinned them loosely above Sam’s head. Sam’s breathing hitched, fear darkening his expressive eyes, and Dean dipped low, letting his lips trail gently against Sam’s forehead. “It’s just me, Sam,” he repeated, his voice growing huskier with his deepening need.

 _Come on, Sammy, need you… love you…_

Sam relaxed slightly beneath him, the subtle trace of fear in the hitch of Sam’s breaths finally easing back. Dean dropped his head down to lick over the side of Sam’s chin, sucking in the skin before biting down into the flesh hard enough to bruise.

Sam turned his head, exposing his neck to Dean a little more, and a soft, needy whimper escaped his lips. Dean let the rough skin slip from his mouth, let his teeth scrape over the stubble on Sam’s chin, and, as he did, Dean could feel Sam let the fear go and could feel Sam letting fierce desire take its place.

 _Fucker might be able to slip into Sam’s dreams, but it doesn’t get to stay._

Dean licked over Sam’s abused skin and then sucked it back into his mouth, placing a second bite over the first and deepening the marks he knew would be there in the morning. When he let go, Sam tried to follow him, silently begging for more. Dean smiled and pushed his brother back to the bed before moving down slowly to lavish attention on Sam’s chest and stomach, relishing in the feel of Sam’s hard muscles quivering under his touch.

Dean’s dick was throbbing painfully now, crying for attention, but Dean wasn’t quite ready to give in to the demands of his own body. He moved down to lick lightly over Sam’s leaking cockhead, and Sam arched up into Dean’s mouth with a groan. Dean relaxed his throat, taking Sam in deep. He’d gotten a lot better at this in the last couple of months. Dean suppressed his smirk and caressed Sam with his tongue instead, worked his lips over his brother as he moved up and down over Sam’s dick a few times.

“No,” Sam moaned, causing Dean to stiffen in alarm. Sam pushed Dean away, and Dean scrambled back in response, not sure what he’d done wrong. “I don’t…” The words were laced with confusion and conflicting desires, and Sam’s hand slipped around the back of Dean’s neck, gripping him tightly to keep him from moving further away, pulling him closer. “Dean,” he gasped, “I need…”

Dean huffed out a soft laugh in relief. Sam’s brain short circuiting with lust was endearing as hell and a shit load easier to deal with than the thought that Dean had messed up _again_. Sam was dragging him up the bed and pivoting around so that they lay in opposite directions before Dean’s brain had a chance to catch up with the situation and… hell, yeah, if he had to have a sleepless night, at least a sixty-nine wasn’t a bad way to spend it.

Allowing himself to be easily manhandled into place, lips met cock at roughly the same time. Satin skin filled Dean’s mouth, the salty bitter taste exploding across Dean’s tongue at the same time that wet heat enveloped his dick, sending fireworks of sensation shivering through Dean’s body. Dean moaned appreciatively and pulled back slightly, taking just the tip of Sam into his mouth. He sucked down hard, causing Sam to jerk against him with a small, needy whimper. Dean chuckled, feeling triumphant, but the laughter died away quickly when Sam sucked him all the way down to the root. _Holy fuck._

The muscles of Sam’s throat and tongue worked against him, and he stilled, his brain unable to keep up. Sam moved up and down, slick and hot, and it wasn’t until Sam thrust into his mouth with a loud plaintive groan that Dean found enough of his wits to begin reciprocating again. Their rhythms escalated in tandem, building their mutual need into a frenzy of bliss and desire until he couldn’t contain it any more. His brain exploded as he pumped come down his brother’s throat, Sam returning the favor half a second behind him.

The last of his orgasm faded, and Dean pulled off Sam to roll onto his back. Sam followed, licking and sucking, never content to just let him go when they were done. Dean basked in it for a few moments, until the continuing stimulation started to border on painful, and he reached down and put a hand on Sam’s head. “Dude,” Dean moaned softly, “Come on, you’re gonna kill me.”

Sam didn’t respond, didn’t stop. Dean let out a strangled moan and sat up, but it was like Sam’s mouth was permanently attached to his groin, and Dean finally had to grab Sam’s head and shoulder to try to force his brother back. Sam was lost in his own head, zoning out on what he was doing, one of the few effects of the curse that occasionally persisted even after they had stopped fighting it. Usually when this happened, Sam came out of it on his own… apparently not this time. It was too much, too painful, and Dean couldn’t take it anymore.

“Sam, stop,” Dean said, pushing again, and Sam reacted like he’d been hit, flinching back and then hunching in on himself, and there was no way someone as big as Sam should be able to look so small…

Sam was shaking, and Dean reached out instinctively, wrapping his arms around his brother and pulling him in close. Dean felt completely powerless to fix anything, and his eyes burned as he gently rocked Sam in his arms, content to just let Sam rest there, if that’s what he needed. It’s not like there was really anything to talk about, they’d already done that, and it hadn’t helped.

“It won’t stop, Dean…” Sam whispered, so softly Dean almost missed it. “No matter what I do, he never really goes away.” Dean felt chill go up his spine; he didn’t have a clue what to say. The room was quiet for a while before Sam continued, “I love you so much, Dean. I just… God, I’m sorry…”

“Hey, goes both ways, Sam, I promise,” Dean managed to get out past the log jam in his throat. He tightened his grip and pulled them both back, pulling up the covers to keep them warm. He wished he could turn off the damn light, but the look on Sam’s face the last time Dean’d asked – even though Sam had agreed… he swallowed. No, he didn’t want to risk that again.

He ran his hands through Sam’s long hair in a soothing motion until Sam’s breathing evened out and Dean was pretty sure he was sleeping. He tore his eyes away from his brother to resume his examination of the ever-so-fascinating ceiling. Damn it, he wished he could sleep. He almost wished they could go back to the time when sex with his brother left him so drained of energy he passed out.

The phone rang, startling Dean from the vague, half-aware zone he’d finally managed to achieve. Dean fumbled for it anxiously; Bobby’s house had been locked up tight when they’d gone to check it out a week and a half ago. And shit, it wasn’t like the man needed to keep them apprised of every hunt he decided to take, but it’d been over a month since they’d heard from him. Dean found himself saying a quick prayer to the universe that this was finally him.

He managed to get the phone open just before it would have gone to voicemail and shoved it to his ear. “Hello…” His voice sounded gravelly, his throat irritated from the blow job; he cleared it self-consciously.

“Dean?” the gruff voice came out loud and strong through the phone, and the bottom dropped out of Dean’s stomach like he’d been sucker-punched.

 _Shit_.

Panicked, he struggled to untangle himself from Sam, finally managing to sit up and swing his legs over the side of the bed, fully awake. “Dad?” he asked hesitantly.

“Dean. Where are you?”

Dean wondered if he should leave the room, but when he glanced back at Sam, their gazes locked. _Too late for that_. Sam was sitting up slowly, his expression fierce and demanding answers. Dean couldn’t look at him, and he turned away. “Not far outside Lincoln,” Dean gritted out, questions and instinctive outrage warring for dominance. A large part of him wanted to close the phone and throw it across the room, wanted to pretend this call never happened.

 _Fuck_.

He felt Sam’s hand rest against his back, and it made his skin crawl. The word, _brother_ , echoed through his head like it hadn’t in months and left him feeling dirty and ashamed and wrong, and at the very same time, guilty for feeling that way. No way could he please both his dad and his brother at the same time. Everything was so fucked up. He stood and walked across the room to sit at the table.

“Okay,” his dad continued, apparently oblivious to Dean’s turmoil, or maybe not caring. “I need you to head up to Green Creek, Colorado, ASAP.”

“Dean,” Sam was talking right over Dad, making the conversation hard to track, “lemme talk to Dad.” Sam was visibly shaking as he stood, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and escalating anger. Oh, _hell no_.

He turned away from Sam, ignoring him so he could focus on the phone call. “Dad, where the hell have you been?” he asked, unable to keep his own frustration from creeping into his voice. “We’ve been trying to reach you for months.”

“Green Creek, son. There’s demon sign in the area…”

Dean cut him off, suddenly impatient, “Is that where you are?”

“Dean,” his dad’s voice held a warning tone, and Dean straightened his posture, coming to attention in automatic response. “Bobby’s there, son, and he’s been out of contact for a couple weeks now. I can’t go, so you’ll head out there now. You understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean replied instinctively, falling back to his training under the sheer force of his father’s ordering tone.

“Good.” There was a sigh on the other end of the phone and his dad’s voice softened. “I’ll meet you at Bobby’s in a week, just… you boys be careful.”

“Dad,” Dean bit out, anger and frustration winning out once more, “where the hell are you?” Dean was greeted with silence, and when he looked at the phone, the call had been ended. “ _Shit_!” He closed the phone and slammed it down on the table, the desire to crawl out of his own skin almost overwhelming.

“Dean?” Sam’s hand closed over his shoulder, and Dean jerked away, moving quickly between the table and the window, needing, in that moment, something tangible between him and his brother. His jeans were slung over the back of one of the chairs in a messy heap, and he grabbed them and pulled them on clumsily.

There was an awkward moment of silence, with Sam staring at the floor and Dean not quite able to meet Sam’s eyes. Sam broke first, running a nervous tongue over his bottom lip before stammering, “Dean, what…”

It felt like the room was caving in on him, the traffic noise becoming a dull roar that filled his ears, until it was thundering through his head making coherent thought impossible. He turned and fumbled blindly at the door before he got it open, got through and slammed it shut behind him.

~o0O0o~

The loud bang of the door sliding home felt like a gun shot, felt like condemnation and denial. Sam stumbled back until he felt the edge of the bed behind his legs, but the bed was everything that was wrong with his life, so he jerked away from it, deciding instead to sit down heavily at the table. His thoughts were chaotic, spinning around in impotent circles, and he absently picked up a pair of boxers off the floor and slipped them on.

His gaze dropped to the phone lying on the table. Dad had finally called.

 _Nine months_.

Sam spun the phone away, letting it fly off the edge of the table. Pulling the laptop forward, he let his hands caress over the cool metal and plastic case. He flipped it open with no particular plan in mind except that, maybe, if Dean came back there might be a hunt to research. The screen flickered on, and the previous night’s web search came up, some page with lots of psychobabble about PTSD, except that while there was lots of information about recovering from rape, there wasn’t any instruction manual for dealing with that while still being forced to rape your brother.

Which… Okay, he knew Dean wanted him to get over thinking that. Dean had, in fact, insisted over and over again that he was okay with their newfound physical relationship. Sam even thought he believed Dean, most of the time… it was just… Sam never seemed to be able to hold onto that faith forever, no matter how much he tried to cling to it. He wanted desperately to be able to just let all his worries and fears go, but the thought that he was justifying it in his head so he could have what he wanted… never really left.

And yet… God, he was fucking _tired_ of feeling like a victim. Anger was the only thing that ever seemed to really help, the only thing that allowed him to bury all his insecurities and feel alive and okay again. He let rage wash over him, the resulting power and control sweeping away his doubts.

He swung the laptop shut and got up, jerking the door open. Dean was sitting in the Impala half dressed, commando, since Sam knew he hadn’t seen Dean pull on any boxers, with his head down on the steering wheel. _Dad_.

Sam, on the other hand, was only wearing boxers, standing there in the open doorway for the whole, wide world to see. He didn’t really give a fuck.

“Dean!” he yelled, loud enough that Dean’s head snapped up in alarm. “Get the hell back in here.”

Dean’s deer-caught-in-the headlights look lingered for a moment before slipping away, and he got quietly out of the Impala. Dean looked tired. Sam was exhausted. They were a pair.

Dean moved toward Sam cautiously, his face twisting into a smirk as he got close, and Sam knew he was going to try to cover everything up with a joke, but Sam just wasn’t in the mood. He wrapped his hands around Dean’s face and pulled him close, sucking Dean’s lips into his mouth and prying them apart with his tongue. Dean struggled back, flinging his arms to either side so he could grip the doorframe for leverage. Sam knew Dean was probably uncomfortable with the public display, but he didn’t really care right at that moment.

He tightened his grip and let his teeth scrape roughly over Dean’s lips, biting down lightly on the edges before sucking them in deep. His tongue stroked in slow to luxuriate over the soft, wet inside of Dean’s mouth. Sam opened his mouth wider, wanting to pull more of Dean inside himself, and feasted there for a moment before sliding down to catch the side of Dean’s rough-stubbled chin. He laved over the skin with his tongue and then bit down hard, letting his teeth sink in enough that he knew he was going to leave marks behind.

Dean stopped trying to pull away and relaxed fully into Sam’s grip. A low, slightly pained sound came from the back of his throat, and Sam basked in the warm feeling of satisfaction that resonated with the soft moan. He sucked on the skin as he pulled back, the noise obscene as the suction broke, and he growled low and intense, only for Dean’s ears, “You’re _mine. Fucking **mine**_. You understand?”

Dean was a little out of breath, his lips parted, his eyes heavy-lidded and lust-blown as he nodded his agreement. Sam smiled and pulled him into the room, slamming him against the wall next to the door before he kicked it closed with his foot. He rested his forehead and hands against Dean’s chest and looked down. Dean was already hard, his dick a bulging line against the fabric of his jeans. A self-satisfied smirk tugged at Sam’s lips; Dean always reacted like this when Sam got possessive, and the physical evidence that Dean wanted what they had as much as Sam did flushed through Sam with comforting warmth. Sam slid down Dean’s body and nuzzled against Dean’s stomach for a moment. Dragging the top of Dean’s waistband down, he slipped his tongue behind the cloth to brush against Dean’s dick.

Dean inhaled sharply and Sam chuckled when he heard Dean’s head bang back against the wall. He used his teeth to pull the top two buttons open, exposing the angry head to the brush of his tongue before breathing out warm air to caress over damp skin.

“God, Sammy,” Dean moaned out. “We can’t…”

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam growled out. If everything Dean always claimed was true, then this was their Dad speaking, not Dean. _Fuck that_. John didn’t get to show up out of the blue, after months of silence, and pass judgment on what they’d done, on what they were doing.

Dean’s dick was still mostly trapped by his pants, and Sam slipped his tongue between it and Dean’s stomach.

Dean hissed in a breath. “Stop.”

Sam pulled his face back and glared up, “Not now, Dean…”

Dean looked down, and it was clear he was having a bit of trouble gathering his thoughts, so Sam reached up and pulled Dean’s pants all the way open, freeing his dick so that it bobbed forward temptingly. Dean smelled so fucking good. It was intoxicating. Sam opened his mouth, ready to wrap it around his brother when Dean slid down the wall, pulling his dick out of reach.

“Sam,” Dean breathed out, putting his hands on either side of Sam’s face to keep him from moving. “Sam, he gave us a lead on Bobby. We gotta go.”

Sam’s aggressive mood slipped away as fast as it had come, guilt slipping in to fill the void. “Is he okay?”

Dean rubbed a hand against his dick, a muttered, “fuck” slipping out as he stood up a little stiffly. “It’s… he said… he just said, Colorado, place called Green Creek. There’s demon sign in the area and Bobby’s been out of contact for… _fuck_! Just a couple of _fucking_ weeks. Guess Bobby’s okay to stay in touch with…”

Dean sounded pissed, as if the problem was that Dad’d been in contact with Bobby only weeks ago, even though he hadn’t tried to contact his sons, as if the problem wasn’t the fact that Dad had once again managed to abandon his sons when they desperately needed him.

Unable to channel his own resentment into something useful, Sam watched his brother stalk angrily around the room for a couple of minutes, throwing weapons and clothing into bags. Guilt about Bobby slowly ate through the morass of inertia left by that phone call – he couldn’t really figure out how to feel about Dad right now… but Bobby needed them. With a sigh, he got up to throw on some clothes.

“Did he say anything else?” Sam asked, breaking the silence once the bags were piled against the door and they were close to leaving.

Dean stopped short, shooting a guilt-heavy glance at Sam before looking away. “Said he’d meet us at Bobby’s in a week,” Dean muttered.

Sam watched Dean move across the room and sling a bag across his back, preparing to leave. He still wasn’t sure what to say, but he moved to rest a hand on Dean’s back.

His brother whirled around, macho tension radiating off of him, “What? We need to hit the road.”

Sam flinched back under Dean’s dark glare. The anger he’d only just buried simmering right under the surface, the sense of betrayal forming a pit of acid in his stomach. “I… You said we were okay. You lie to me about that?”

“What? Sam, no,” Dean responded, his gaze falling away.

“And I’m supposed to believe that when you won’t even look at me?” Sam felt his chest tighten and sweat bead up on his forehead. He closed his eyes as he struggled to keep everything bottled up and under control.

“God, Sammy…” Dean breathed out. “It’s not you, okay. It’s not us… I just…” Dean leaned in and pressed a kiss against his lips, and Sam drew strength from it, letting it steady him. The need for this to be real was a desperate, soul-deep ache. Dean was hovering close enough for their breaths to mingle, and Sam breathed in deeply, letting it fill him.

Sam opened his eyes and looked into Dean’s fear-filled ones, and he knew he’d given up on his father’s approval years ago, but he didn’t think Dean ever would. “He doesn’t have to know, Dean. We just don’t tell him, okay?”

Dean’s gaze skittered away. “He’ll know.”

Sam bit back the sharp retort that he _didn’t care_. He didn’t. Not after their dad had left Dean to die, not after he’d abandoned them to deal with the curse on their own. Not after he’d essentially disowned his own son all those years ago. Dean cared. He forced his anger down. _Dean_ cared. That’s what mattered. “He won’t, Dean. He’s not gonna guess this. Not this. Not unless we tell him. We’ll find a reason, and we won’t stay together while he’s around. He doesn’t need to know.”

Dean took in a deep breath and looked back at Sam for a long moment, searching for something. Finally, his gaze hardened and he nodded once. “Let’s go find Bobby.”

They grabbed the bags and left the room.

  


  



	2. Chapter 2

The little mountain town was so small they had to go two miles past it to find any place to stay, but at least they were individual cabins so they didn’t have to worry about making noise. Dean had had to bang on the door to wake up the proprietor to get the damn room; apparently, everything was locked up tight long before one in the morning in these parts.

By the time Dean came back, Sam had already gotten the bags out of the car and was just standing there, as if it wasn’t freezing cold out tonight. Both of them had been moody all day; after the first few abortive attempts at conversation had failed to go anywhere, and the volume war over the music had finally resulted in music too quiet to sing comfortably with, they’d settled into an irritable silence. Sam hadn’t really looked at him all day, just grunted an agreement whenever Dean suggested they stop for food or gas.

Fuck it. Dean was ready to take the edge off. He hurried his brother into the cabin and paused only long enough to turn on the heat before he grabbed Sam and pulled both of Sam’s shirts off with a single, upward motion.

“Thought you were tired?” Sam balked, although he raised his arms with the flow of the shirts over his head.

“Was. Still am. Shut up,” Dean muttered, sliding his lips over Sam’s chest, letting his tongue catch on one of Sam’s nipples teasingly.

Dean smirked at Sam’s sharp intake of breath, knowing he’d won even before Sam clutched at Dean’s head and pressed up into his mouth. “Horn dog,” Sam whispered affectionately.

“You know it,” Dean smiled back, letting his words wash warmly against Sam’s skin. Dean pushed Sam back until they hit the wall. Sam groaned when Dean brought up his hands to run them over the firm muscles of Sam’s stomach. Sam grabbed Dean’s head to pull him up with a needy moan, crushing their mouths together greedily. Forcing Dean’s mouth open and finding his tongue, Sam sucked it in deeply and then let it go again and again with steady pulls that went straight to Dean’s dick.

Dean let Sam take control and plunder his mouth, knowing his brother was his now. Working his hands between their bodies he fumbled Sam’s pants open, his hands frantic and clumsy. As soon as they were open enough he plunged his hands into them, seeking out the wet heat of Sam’s dick. He curled one hand around it while the other sought out Sam’s balls and caressed over them before giving them a soft, playful squeeze. Sam arched against him, seeking more, and Dean immediately pulled his hands free, teasing a long trail up Sam’s torso before coming to rest lightly on Sam’s broad shoulders.

“Fucking tease,” Sam muttered, helplessly thrusting against Dean, frustration evident in his tense expression.

Dean allowed himself a moment to gloat at his brother’s loss of control, but he didn’t get to do it for long. Sam fisted his hands in Dean’s shirt and swung Dean around against the wall hard enough to drive the air from Dean’s lungs, effectively reversing their positions.

Not pausing long enough to let Dean take back control, Sam pressed his upper body solidly against Dean’s, pulling back just enough to moan, “Too many clothes,” against Dean’s mouth, low and needy and desperate. Taking total advantage of his greater bulk and strength, Sam kept Dean trapped while he stripped his own pants off.

“Don’t you dare move,” Sam growled, and the dark determination that glittered in Sam’s eyes caused Dean’s pulse to race and a small needy sound to slip embarrassingly from his lips. Sam didn’t hesitate at all and pulled back just enough to strip off all of Dean’s clothes with eager hands. Dean heard the soft sound of tearing cloth, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care about something as unimportant as his clothing when Sam was wrapping a strong arm around him and pulling one of his legs up to wrap around Sam’s torso. The fingers of Sam’s other hand played over his hole temptingly, and Dean arched back, slamming his head back against the wall with a loud, “Fuck!”

Sam’s grip on Dean’s thigh tightened, a clear message to _leave it there_. Fingers pressed into the skin and massaged the muscles on the backside of Dean’s leg and up his ass.

 _Holy crap, but that felt good_ …

His brother’s fingers meandered up to play tantalizingly over Dean’s mouth, leaving Dean’s brain barely functional. Dean nipped at them, unable to resist, so Sam let them slip inside Dean’s mouth to stroke over Dean’s tongue. Leaning in, Sam licked over the shell of Dean’s ear, getting it wet enough that Dean shivered in pleasure as Sam’s breath ghosted over it. “Get ‘em wet,” Sam whispered.

Dean’s stomach clenched in nervous anticipation, but he opened obediently to suck the digits in deep and play over them with his tongue. He laved over them hungrily, imagining they were Sam’s cock.

Sam moaned, his cool control slipping a little, and he rested his forehead against Dean’s with a needy whimper. Sam pressed a wet kiss against Dean’s cheek, licking messily down the side of Dean’s face before letting his teeth scrape across Dean’s chin. “Need to be inside you, a part of you, can’t… can’t wait,” Sam gasped against his skin.

Sam’s fingers were deep in Dean’s mouth, and he anxiously twirled his tongue around and between until they were sloppy wet with his saliva. They’d never done it without lube before, but if it meant Sam was inside of him faster, Dean was willing to give it a try. Pulling his fingers free of Dean’s mouth with a wet pop, Sam reached down, his fingers hovering maddeningly just over Dean’s hole, driving Dean wild with anticipation. “Jesus, fuck, Sammy! Just do it already,” Dean moaned.

Sam huffed out a quiet laugh, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded with desire. Dean had just enough time to wonder where Sam was getting his willpower before he smiled lasciviously and thrust an eager figure into Dean’s hole. With a single push he drove it in fast and deep.

Dean groaned at the intrusion and brought his leg up a little higher to open himself up and give Sam better access. Sam covered Dean’s lips with his own and, without much preamble, pushed a second finger inside. Now that Sam was inside of Dean, his patience seemed to have evaporated, and he worked his fingers inside with an almost frantic rhythm that matched the tiny bites and licks he was applying to Dean’s face.

The burn was intense, the pace faster than Dean was used to, but Sam’s fierce urgency was infectious, and Dean pressed against Sam’s fingers, encouraging more. Sam completely ignored Dean’s not so subtle urging, inexplicably pulling out instead. “Sam?” Dean panted, “fuck, what…”

Sam moved his hands to the back of Dean’s legs and shifted Dean up so that the slip-slide of Sam, hard and wet behind Dean’s balls, made him gasp with pleasure. Dean’s own dick, pressed tightly between them, was throbbing with need.

Sam pushed three fingers back into Dean’s body, making him shudder as the burn increased and the fingers sought out Dean’s center, the intense sensations going straight to his dick and making Dean ache for more, making him frantic for more.

“Tell me you need me…” Sam whispered against his neck. “Tell me you want my dick up your ass…”

Dean struggled to find meaning in Sam’s words; he thought it might be possible that his brains were leaking out of his dick, and Sam wanted him to fucking _talk_? “Yeah, Sam, yeah,” he mumbled back.

“Not good enough, Dean,” Sam growled. “Tell me nothing’s ever going to come between us. Tell me you’re mine forever.”

“I’m yours. That’s never… that’s never going to change,” Dean managed to moan out. “Need you inside… now.”

Sam pulled his fingers free, leaving Dean clenching against the empty ache they left behind, and he let his head fall back against the wall, his body arching up tightly against Sam’s. Sam pulled his hand in front of his face and spit on it before reaching between them to run his hand around his own dick. When he was done, Sam cupped Dean’s balls, caressing them briefly before shifting back to rub over the skin behind them. Somehow, this drove Dean even wilder; Dean hadn’t thought that was even possible. Sam pushed Dean further up, using the wall for leverage so that Dean could wrap both legs around his brother’s torso. Slowly, Sam let Dean sink down, Sam’s dick finding Dean’s hole effortlessly and sinking inside with one… smooth… push.

Dean’s world grayed out for a moment, lost in the burning ache of Sam’s entry, but he came back to himself when Sam pulled out and then pushed back in hard. Sam pulsed into him, and Dean was trapped as he clutched around his brother and the ache was intense, but the heavy desire throbbing through his dick was stronger, and he found himself begging for more each time Sam shoved in, little puffs of, “God,” and “Please, “ and “Fuck, more now.”

Sam’s teeth bit against the scar on his neck, and Dean yelled out, “Fuck, yes,” as his orgasm crashed through him, making him convulse in Sam’s arms. Sam’s arms tightened around Dean in a crushing embrace as their bodies trembled together, until they were sliding down the wall together in a tangle of limbs, a panting, sweaty mess.

~o0O0o~

Dean had left the light on and Sam looked over at it in frustration. Sam knew Dean had done it for him, the whys of which he wasn’t eager to dwell on right now. Sam looked away, his gaze landing solidly on his brother. The soft woofing noise Dean was making in his crashed-out, post-coital slumber was irritating instead of sweet tonight. Sam would have given his right arm to be asleep as well; the oblivion of dreamless sleep was a luxury that had been just out of reach for days now.

Annoyance peaked, and, without stopping to analyze why, he pushed Dean off his chest and reached out to turn off the light with one fluid movement.

The room went completely black.

This far out in the middle of nowhere meant no city lights, and the heavy forest around them was enough to block out the rest. Sam froze, his hand hovering over the switch. Sam could feel the flush of sweat break out across his forehead, and his hand trembled slightly as it hovered next to the heavy lamp. _Fuck. This._ Dean was there. Sam was _fine_. He forced his hand away from the switch, laid back and shut his eyes tight, determined to conquer the dark.

A soft noise from outside snapped Sam’s eyes open once more and his heart immediately started racing. His eyes strained to pick out some of the detail of the room, but there was nothing. Nothing. Skin crawling, he forced himself to breathe deeply in and out, but each inhalation came a little faster. He could feel the full blown panic starting to steal over him. With a frantic gasp he sat up and switched the light back on. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed he rested his head in his hands and tried to get himself back under control.

“Sammy?” Dean slurred, flailing a tired, half-awake hand out to thump against Sam’s back.

“I’m fine, Dean,” Sam forced out, struggling to keep his voice sounding calm, “Just gotta hit the head. Go back to sleep.”

“Cold,” was all Dean mumbled groggily before his breaths evened out once more. Sam stood up and put the covers back over Dean, carefully tucking them around his brother before grabbing a shirt and sweatpants. He threw them on hastily and slipped on a pair of shoes before stepping out. The cold autumn air hit him hard, ratcheting up the subtle jitters that were already impossible to ignore. He cast a final glance back at Dean to be sure, but his brother was out cold, and Sam quietly shut the door.

Light spilled out from the window, but it only reached far enough to see a little down the porch steps. Sam moved to the middle of them, keeping himself carefully within the circle of light, and sat down, wrapping his arms around his body and huddling against the cold.

The little bits of power that he stole from his brother every time they had sex were building up again, starting to spill over, and it was possible that if Sam burned it off a little he’d be able to get some sleep. He felt a little odd keeping this from Dean, but he could tell the whole issue of his powers made Dean uncomfortable, even though Dean tried to hide it. Hell, it made him uncomfortable. He was a freak before the attack, and the creature had changed him into even more of one. He didn’t want to talk about it any more than Dean did.

He cut off his train of thought and tried to focus. The tricky part was keeping his powers from going wild when he used them. They seemed to have a mind of their own and didn’t like being controlled. There were some leaves and twigs on the bottom step, and Sam focused on them, trying to brush them off. Nothing happened. He sighed and rubbed frozen fingers against his forehead and then brought them down to try again. Nothing.

There was a time not so long ago that he would have done anything for a phone call from his dad. Why did he have to call today?

The thought flashed through his mind unbidden, but he leapt at it anyway, latching onto the hurt and anger that accompanied it.

He pushed again and a loud scraping sound that was likely to wake the entire campground shattered the night as half the step, in addition to the leaves, scraped off onto the ground, leaving a splintery, ground-down mess behind. Sam leapt up, eyes wide, stomach twisting with guilt, and turned to face the cabin, waiting for Dean to come rushing out in a panic… but nothing happened and, after a couple of minutes, Sam stepped down to examine the damage. Mostly by touch, he figured out that, while the top part of the step was completely gone, it would probably still bear weight, so at least they probably wouldn’t be facing charges for the damage. He relaxed and turned to look back out into the night.

His eyes strained, but he couldn’t pierce the darkness. Light would be good… light would be handy. He tried to focus, tried to imagine light flaring in the darkness. Nothing. He flung his mind out farther, letting his thoughts wander.

Once Dad was back, what if Dean didn’t want to be with him anymore? Sam’s chest tightened uncomfortably, his mouth suddenly dry. He didn’t want to go back to how it had been in the beginning – Dean giving himself to Sam out of a sense of obligation when it was only the curse forcing him to do it. Things were better now. They had been for a while. Resentment thick enough to choke tightened his throat.

He cast out farther with his mind, trying to make out something in the god-awful dark. He caught on something and stumbled forward – a pit of wrongness off to the left. It was like a sore tooth, and he worried at it, sharp little bursts of pain that he couldn’t stop touching. He moved towards it, unwilling but unable to resist the pull.

Sam walked for a while, heedless of the branches that caught on his clothes as he moved through the thick underbrush. He stumbled along the uneven ground as the lack of light made even small obstacles impossible to avoid, but turning back wasn’t an option – despite the bone deep chill that was making him shiver almost violently. He _needed_ to find and destroy the force that was marring the simple beauty of the surrounding forest like a festering sore. He was almost there… just a few more steps… he stumbled on, repeating _a few more steps_ … he zoned on the words, the Zen-like rhythm of his stride matching the steady beat of his heart.

His foot caught on something, and he went down hard, his teeth catching on his bottom lip sharply enough to draw blood. The metallic taste slid over his tongue, and all at once the connection with the… whatever that was, cut off, leaving him alone in the dark without any knowledge of where the hell he was, how long he’d been walking, or how to get back.

He stood up slowly. Everything felt okay; at least he’d managed to fall without injuring himself. What the hell had possessed him to go wandering off into the woods with no gear? He did a slow circle in place but found no light in any direction. He tried to remember if he’d walked in a straight line, but most of the journey was a haze now.

The dark pressed in on him, and his breathing quickened. He staggered back a step and pressed his back against a tree, limiting the angles of attack. At least it wasn’t silent; he could hear the movements of small animals through the underbrush and the branches above, the wind in the trees and the call of an owl off to his right; it was all somehow more than a little comforting.

Panic prickled along the edge of his scalp and twisted in his guts. He inhaled deeply, trying to take back control of his breathing and push away the fear that only made him weak. It was just a goddamned forest. He wasn’t blind; it was just dark. Dad would tell him to grow a fucking back-bone and work through it. Controlled breathing wasn’t doing shit. He was being a fucking coward. He rubbed his fingers harshly against the bark of the tree, letting the pain center him. That seemed to help, at least. He exhaled sharply and snorted derisively. He was fine.

He couldn’t have walked that far; his legs weren’t sore enough for that. If he started moving back in the direction he came from and called out as he went, eventually he’d either find something, or Dean would find him. That was probably a better plan than just standing here, pathetically waiting to be rescued. He nodded to himself, decision made. Still, he didn’t move from the tree.

It had to have been at least three when he left. While the cold was numbing, it wasn’t enough to kill him in the couple of hours left before the sun would come up. Shivers were already coursing through his body, though. He moved his hands over his arms – not to prove to himself that he wasn’t bound, or to prove that he wasn’t scared, or anything – just to warm himself up.

A noise echoed loudly to the right, and his muscles tensed, rigid with fear. He stilled, holding his breath and straining to hear if something other than some kind of wildlife was there. It was probably nothing. The noises in the thick tree canopy above him hadn’t changed, and they would have if there was a predator nearby. Cursing himself for being paranoid, he fought back a little bit of the tension riding him.

Bright light abruptly flared in front of his eyes, and he flinched them closed. All the panic that he’d only been fooling himself into believing that he was holding back crashed over him in a wave, pulling a startled, irrational scream from his lips.

“What’cha doin’ out here in the dark?” The voice was gruff, old. He struggled to open his eyes, but the light didn’t move away, and they stayed stubbornly clenched tight.

A hand landed on his shoulder and he tore himself to the side and back, shoving the man away roughly.

“Hey, you don’t gotta be like that! I was only trying to help,” the man snapped.

Sam forced himself to rip his eyes open, but he couldn’t make out much past the glare of the flashlight and his watering eyes.

 _The light hadn’t been on when the man approached_.

“Christo,” Sam growled warily, his training stepping in to help push back the fear.

The man flinched back.

There was a moment where they stared at each other, startled into stillness, and then the words of an exorcism started tumbling from Sam’s lips at the same moment the demon tackled him to the ground with unnatural strength.

The demon chuckled, lips twisted in a cruel sneer, and Sam tried to speak faster, but they both knew that the odds of Sam making it through the exorcism without some way to hold the demon still for it were pretty damn low.

It ducked down close, face hovering just over Sam’s, close enough he could feel its breath ghosting over him, and Sam felt the sharp beginnings of panic lancing low in his belly. Gripping Sam’s face in its hands, it dived down, covering Sam’s lips with its own and very effectively cutting off his words. Sam closed his lips instinctively against the assault, but the demon was undeterred, obscenely slathering over them as Sam struggled to get away. Saliva slicked Sam’s lips and chin, and Sam pushed against the man… demon, desperate to move it off of him, but it had its legs clenched tightly around Sam’s hips and barely even seemed to notice Sam’s attempts.

It licked up the underside of Sam’s chin before pulling up to look at him smugly, and he yanked his head from its grasp with a snarl.

“What’s a’matter, Sammy? I heard you like it rough like this,” the demon purred.

Sam’s body stilled, his breath stuck in his throat, unable to exhale. “What?” he finally managed to choke out.

“You and your brother? How can you call it a curse when it makes you feel… so…” it sniffed up the side of Sam’s neck, pausing to whisper the final word in Sam’s ear, “…powerful.”

Sam jerked back, fear and anger warring for dominance and tangling together in the pit of his stomach before twining their way up into his chest and mixing with the raw power that had been humming through him since he’d fucked his brother up against the wall. All he knew was that he wanted the creature hovering over him to be gone. The power spilled out, pushing into the demon’s mouth and nose and ears, anywhere there was a place to enter, wrapping around it and squeezing tight.

The demon screamed, the noise piercing the night with a pure terror that seemed to grow, stilling the night-life of the forest with the anticipation of coming chaos. Sam pulsed with raw power, each pulse matching the ever more piercing screams. Bright crimson began spilling from the demon’s nose first to be joined by bloody tears a few seconds later. The creature reared back, releasing Sam in order to bring its hands up to its head, to clutch at itself in pain. Its screams continued to build, louder and louder, until they became an unearthly screech that echoed through the forest.

The anger and fear morphed into cold fury, and Sam poured more of the power, more of himself out to wrap around the demon. The power clamped down, and the blood began pouring out, showering over Sam in a sickly bath. Moments later, the blood was joined by torrents of black smoke that wrapped around Sam’s body, swirling around him and immersing him in inky, impenetrable blackness.

Just like that the panic was back, choking back the flow of his power. The black smoke caressed over his skin seductively, teasing over tongue and chest and groin, and Sam felt cold dread gripping his chest when the first pulse of arousal filled him. The flow of power stuttered, and then stopped all together, leaving Sam helpless. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force his lungs to work. He was covered in oily blackness, leaving him without sight, without voice, his hearing filled with the hideous sound of the man’s screams that somehow still filled the night.

“Dean,” the word slipped out without permission, and fire slipped down his throat, drenching him in cold, paralyzing fear, knowing the thing was working its way inside, causing bile to come up to meet it.

The scream cut off suddenly, and the heavy weight of the man collapsed on top of Sam only a moment before the smoke abruptly slipped away, clearing his vision as it sank into the ground around him, slipping away and leaving the night eerily, unnaturally quiet.

Sam tried to gasp in a breath, but was hindered by the man lying on top of him. Pushing the body off, he scrambled back until his ass was pressed against the trunk of a tree and he couldn’t go any further. His clothes were wet, heavy, and he could feel the cloth clinging to his skin; the sharp metallic smell of blood drifted heavily in the air.

Sam swayed, his stomach twisting sideways; he was descending into darkness once again. Hands, _always the goddamn hands_ , crawled over his skin and stole his awareness of now. Rage tore out of his throat, low and primal. He was sick of the fear and the helplessness, sick of not being _fucking_ himself. He dug his fingers deep into the bark of the tree roots and let the rough wood slice into his fingers to serve as an anchor of sorts to push the feeling of the hands away and pull him back to the present. He drew in harsh, shaking breaths in relief that, at least for now, the creature that haunted his dreams was gone.

Eventually, he moved forward, feeling his way towards what had been the demon. The guy was probably dead; there was way too much blood outside for there to be enough left inside to survive, but Sam couldn’t quite leave that unverified. The man’s arm was cold. He worked his way down and wrapped trembling fingers around the man’s wrist. There was nothing but cold stillness.

He flung the dead flesh down and staggered up. Fighting against the foolish instinct to run through the unlit forest, he stumbled back against the tree trunk instead and pressed his hands against his face, squeezing harshly. He’d killed the man with nothing more than a thought. Sam turned around and slammed a fist against the trunk, hard enough that something snapped, which, _fuck_ , Dean was going to kill him. He needed to fucking get a grip.

He couldn’t leave without taking care of the damn body, and he couldn’t do that in the dark with no tools. He was stuck here until morning. He shivered, hard, the cold filtering back into his consciousness. It was worse now that he’d managed to saturate his clothes with blood. Folding himself back down to the ground he wrapped his arms around his legs in a largely futile attempt to hold on to some of his heat. It was going to be a long rest of the night.

~o0O0o~

Dean rolled over and ran his hand over the cold sheets, seeking heat. When his hand went over the side of the bed, his eyes snapped open. Sam wasn’t there. _Must be in the bathroom_. His eyes slipped closed again and he drifted, lazy, back and forth on the edge of sleep for a while. It was eerily quiet in the cabin. He opened his eyes again and muttered out a drowsy, “Sam?”

He was greeted with silence. A shiver ran down his back, and he sat up. The door to the bathroom was wide open. Dean rolled out of bed and peeked inside. Empty. What the fuck?

He walked over and jerked the front door open, but Sam wasn’t there either. A shiver worked its way down his back, a cold sweat breaking out all over his body. He closed his eyes, forcing the rising anxiety down. This was _nothing_ like the last time Sam had disappeared; Sam was fine. He just… He just needed to keep his head in the game. Sam’d gone for a walk or something stupid – Dean just needed to find the pain in the ass.

After throwing on some clothes, Dean trotted down the front steps and pulled one of the high-powered flashlights out of the car. He checked his ammo and armed up - it was merely a precaution, not because he was actually all that worried, because he wasn’t _worried_. Huffing out a breath he played the light over the ground looking for some clue for where Sam might have gone, looking for any evidence of a struggle.

It only took a few minutes to find recent traces of somebody moving off to the right, and he breathed out the breath he’d been holding and moved off to follow them. Sammy was too fucking old to be playing hide and seek.

Dean was going to fucking kill Sam when he found him. The trail of clues formed a straight shot into the middle of nowhere, so it wasn’t too hard to keep track of it and Dean was able to move fairly rapidly through the woods. His brain spun on the question of what the fuck Sam was thinking, and his trepidation increased accordingly the longer he traveled.

His body was buzzing with tension when his light played over a corpse in the middle of a small clearing, bringing him up short. Shit. He shined the light over the area, listening for any sign of a predator before he crept cautiously over to check the man for signs of life. The body was cool, probably gone for at least an hour, and he couldn’t stop the alarmed call of, “Sammy?” from slipping from his lips.

“Dean?” The gruff answer was gratifyingly immediate, and Sam moved, somewhat stiffly, out from behind one of the larger trees.

Dean’s intake of breath was harsh and abrupt. Sam was covered in blood. Fear slammed into Dean’s gut, choking off his breathing. “Jesus, Sam!” Dean barked and leapt forward to check his brother for injury. Sam’s arms were wrapped tightly around himself, and the small shivers coursing through his body did absolutely nothing for Dean’s peace of mind.

Sam waved him off, pulling back and muttering, “I’m fine, Dean, just, fucking freezing. Can we save the mother-henning for when we get back to the room?”

“You’re covered in blood,” Dean muttered, undeterred. At least he wasn’t finding any evidence that it was Sam’s. Dean reached out and patted Sam’s cheek, making his brother flinch back. “What, is it that time of the month? Dude, you reek. What’d you do, take a bath in it?”

“Did you miss me saying that I’m freezing?” Sam practically snarled back.

Dean raised his eyebrows, a little taken aback. “Touchy, touchy. Alright, we can head back, but you owe me the full story as soon as we get there, and we’re gonna have to come back and clean this up.”

Sam turned away and started moving back towards the cabin, his feet clumsily catching on a stray branch as he moved out of the light. Dean’s gaze caught on the dead body one last time. He briefly acknowledged the uneasy disquiet that gathered low in his belly before shoving it away and hurrying after his brother to light the way.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean followed Sam into the cabin. The silence Sam’d maintained on the walk back was grating on his nerves, but just as he opened his mouth to say something, Sam moved into the bathroom and slammed the door. Dean followed but paused with one hand on the doorknob and the other against the doorframe, suddenly unsure what to do. It’d been a long time since Sam had given off the vibe that he didn’t really want Dean around.

The water turned on, and he could hear Sam moving around inside. “Sammy?” Dean said quietly, pitching his voice just loud enough to be heard through the door. There was no answer, and Dean rested his head against the cool wood, bumping his forehead lightly against it.

The pulse of the water changed; Sam was in the stall. His desire to make sure Sam really was uninjured suddenly spiking, Dean's hand on the knob tightened. He stopped himself short of turning it. Maybe Sam was finally at a place where he needed some space. If he was, Dean needed to respect that. It would be a good sign, probably, even though Dean didn’t really want the space for himself. Sam had always been more independent… before.

Something had happened in the woods that had left Sam edgy and unsettled, though, so maybe Dean should… His hands were shaking under the weight of indecision. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, didn’t know how to help his brother get over his issues. ‘Bury it and move on’ was the only thing he knew.

Sam didn’t seem to know how to do that… to be fair, maybe it wasn’t working for Dean so well this time, either.

He turned his back to the door, leaned against it and slid down, listening to the sound of the water hitting Sam’s skin. Dean focused until he could separate the thrum of water against skin from the soft thumps as it ricocheted off his brother’s body and splattered against the shower walls. The noise was soothing, smoothing out his thoughts and spinning them into white noise. It felt good, calming.

He really didn’t want to think anymore.

A loud thud pulled him out of his safe space and sent him flying up to pull uselessly at the door knob. Sam had freaking locked it which was… he shook the thought away, yelling, “Sam?” as he slammed the weight of his body against the door.

Pain spilled down his shoulder, and he clutched at himself, moaning slightly. He only indulged himself for a second before throwing himself against the door once more. He thought he heard a sharp cracking sound, but the door remained solidly closed, and… what the hell? Why the hell had the cabin builders used a fucking solid door for a bathroom?

He slammed his fist against it one more time, completing the line of fire down his entire right side and highlighting the fact that panic was making him act like a complete idiot; he knew the correct way to break down a door, and it wasn't with your shoulder. “Sam? Damn it!” Dean inhaled deeply one more time, bracing himself, before sending a solid kick towards the door, to just below the knob, only to have it simply open at the last possible moment.

Too late to stop his forward momentum, Dean swung his foot down as he spun around to the side. He narrowly avoided landing the kick on his unsuspecting brother. Instead, he ended up slamming into Sam so hard with the side of his shoulder that he drove the air from Sam in a startled whoosh. They nearly went down in a tangle of limbs, but Sam grabbed hold hard enough to bruise, and they managed to stay upright.

Dean flushed, feeling a little lame for overreacting. Lock picks probably would have been the better way to go, more effective and less obvious. Sam must think he was an idiot.

He pushed away from his brother, an embarrassed, “Sorry,” slipping from his lips before he realized that he’d been feeling tremors rippling beneath Sam’s skin, which was still warm and steaming from the shower. Sam’s gaze was fixed downward, his breaths coming out in jagged gasps. He looked young, vulnerable... The sight tore at Dean’s heart.

“Hey,” Dean whispered, slipping mostly steady fingers across the harsh stubble on Sam’s chin. He pushed his hand up to curl into the wet strands of Sam’s hair and tugged softly in a gentle attempt to capture his brother’s attention. The muscles all along the back of Sam’s neck tensed, and Sam flinched back at Dean’s touch.

Dean immediately started to pull back, but suddenly Sam was pushing him back to slam against the opposite wall of the bathroom. Sam crowded into his space, biting over his lips with a fierce, hungry, unequivocable claim. Dean yielded to Sam’s demanding tongue, not sure what to make of the sudden shift, but far preferring needy possessiveness over the fear that never seemed to stay far out of reach. He opened under the assault with a moan as Sam’s tongue slid along his own, slipped over the top and swirled around underneath. Sam grasped Dean’s head on either side to pull him in closer and suck his tongue down deeper, scraping teeth over Dean’s tongue and lips with a pressure just on the edge of painful.

Sam’s lips began a slow seductive journey down Dean’s face, licking and sucking over the edge of his chin and working back along his jaw. Stopping just below Dean’s ear, Sam bit against the skin, worrying it between his teeth before sucking it in forcefully. The sharp pain shot straight to Dean’s dick. He arched his head back, exposing his neck to Sam’s explorations, and Sam let out a low growl. The vibration of sound tickled over Dean’s skin, and Dean writhed up against Sam’s body. Dean needed contact, needed Sam’s touch so bad he was ready to tackle his brother down to the ground if he didn’t get it soon.

Sam dragged Dean’s shirt up, and Dean eagerly threw up his hands to let Sam tear the offending clothing up and off of his body. His brother maneuvered him around, pushing him backwards and steering him out of the bathroom towards the bed. Dean kicked his shoes off as they moved together. Their hands and mouths clashed in frenzied movements, desperately seeking the needed touch and taste of every inch of each other’s skin. Sam had never even grabbed a towel, and, between the wet of Sam’s skin and the chill of the main room, shivers vibrated through Dean’s body forming a delicious contrast to the heat Sam was raising under his skin. Sam yanked Dean’s pants down and stepped on them as he nudged Dean to step back out of them. With one, final, hard shove, Dean landed with a huff on his back, splayed out and completely exposed, with his legs draped over the edge of the bed.

Sam fell to the floor between Dean’s knees and nudged them further apart to make room. Strong hands smoothed over the flesh of Dean’s inner thighs, rubbing delicate, playful circles into the skin. Each pass drifted tantalizingly close to Dean’s balls only to skitter away at the last second. In no time at all, Dean was arching up, desperately searching for contact. His hands strained against the blankets, bunching the material together in clenched fists; his jaw clamped tight in an effort not to speak, but it was a hopeless battle.

“Sam, please,” ripped from Dean’s throat. The wet warmth of Sam’s tongue caressing over the underside of his dick made Dean moan and tremble with need. Sam played along the underside of the ridge before sweeping up to lap at the moisture beading over the tip. Dean throbbed under the attention. He wasn’t going to last long this time.

Sam stilled over him. Several seconds slipped by with Dean gasping for breath, craving and waiting and trying to make sense of the change, before Dean realized that Sam hadn’t just paused, he’d stopped. Sudden uneasiness slammed the lid down on his lust. He lifted his head from the bed and looked down. “Sam?”

Sam’s face was completely inscrutable, his gaze locked on Dean’s dick. His breaths were coming out hard and fast, his muscles rigid and holding him locked in a hover over Dean’s body. Sam didn’t respond to Dean’s question, so Dean asked it again, a little louder this time. “Sammy, you okay?”

A flash of anger crossed Sam’s face before he blanked his features out again. After a slight pause, Sam replied, “Yeah, Dean. ‘M fine.” His voice was husky and soft.

Sam’s hands were resting on Dean’s knees, and he tickled over the light dusting of hair above them with his fingers as if he found it suddenly fascinating, which.... Dean sat up cautiously, an action that Sam echoed, sitting back on his heels and reluctantly dropping his hands into his lap. Sam’s dick was still hard, but the mood was completely wrong now.

Slowly tracking his gaze up Dean’s body, he finally met Dean’s eyes. Sam’s don’t-argue-with-me expression crept over his features and his body braced for a fight. Dean couldn’t quite figure out how they’d moved from all-consuming lust to awkward and angry in sixty seconds flat. “I want…” Sam stopped and cleared his throat, his neck muscles popping with tension. Finally, he choked out, “I want you to… fuck me this time.”

A sudden blaze of panic flowed over Dean. Sam wasn’t ready for... fuck that. Dean wasn’t ready for Sam to freak out like that again. “No.”

“Dean…”

Dean lurched up off the bed and backed away until his ass hit the dresser. His hands dropped back and gripped the edge of the wood. The solidness made him feel slightly better; he didn’t stop to analyze why. “No,” he repeated again, his tone not allowing any room for argument because this was a ridiculous conversation to be having in the first place. What the hell was his brother even thinking?

Sam stood up and moved toward Dean. His muscles flexed gracefully over his tall frame, but Dean could see the underlying tension rippling beneath his skin. Sam pressed his body against Dean in an unbroken line and dipped down to stroke his tongue wetly over Dean’s lips. Dean kept his mouth shut tight, his jaw clenched, determined not to give in. Sam’s teeth scrapped against Dean’s bottom lip nibbling gently, and then Sam pulled back slightly, his breath close enough to caress over Dean’s mouth. “Please, Dean. I need this. I need you to do this for me.”

Dean didn’t trust himself to speak, simply shook his head once, sharply.

Moving back just enough to meet Dean’s gaze, Sam added, “Please, don’t make me beg.” His eyes were pooling with pain and vulnerability, his face clouding with that look that only their father had ever been successful in denying.

“Shit, what the hell?” Dean forced himself to ask. “Why now? Why tonight?”

“I just… I need to take back my control, Dean. I need to erase what that bastard did to me. I need to know it doesn’t have to hurt.” Sam’s voice was husky with unvoiced pain.

Dean opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again, at a loss. He tried again, “You aren’t…”

What? _Okay? Sane? Strong enough?_ He couldn’t say any of that to his brother. “The last time we tried this you freaked out.”

“And we haven’t tried it since!” Sam replied petulantly. “I’m better than I was then. It’s been a couple of months, for God’s sake.” Dean opened his mouth to say no again, but Sam cut him off with a whispered, almost hopeless sounding, “Please…”

“Fuck,” Dean bit out, his resolve crumbling. “Yeah. Okay… okay…”

A brief flicker of relief passed over Sam’s features, followed by a flash of anger, which Sam covered up with lust so fast Dean thought maybe he’d imagined it. Sam dropped his lips to Dean’s. A strangled, almost whimper issued from deep in his throat, his tongue pushing into Dean’s mouth with a passion laced with desperation. The intensity of the kiss short-circuited Dean’s brain for a moment. The sharp demanding covetousness Sam was displaying stirred something primal in him – a need to be claimed, owned by his brother that left him breathless.

Sam took advantage, not letting their mouths part as he backed them both up to the bed. The forceful press of teeth scraping against the inside of his mouth was harsh enough to draw a little blood and tinge the taste of their kisses with copper. Dean moaned into it, allowing himself to surrender to his need.

Sam relaxed his grip enough to lick up the side of Dean’s face, his tongue flickering over sweat-salted skin. His breath was labored and warm by the time he reached Dean’s temple. He hovered there for a moment, and Dean moaned and leaned in, seeking more. Sam ignored Dean’s wordless plea, and instead turned Dean’s head forward to press light kisses over Dean’s eyelids.

Without warning, Sam turned around and crawled onto the bed, face first. Dean’s dick hardened with a painful pulse as he took in the sight of the long length of Sam’s back and ass, etched deeply with the play of muscle under skin. Dean had given up months ago on trying to deny that the barely contained power in Sam’s body left him aching.

Dean kneeled on the bed between Sam’s sprawled legs, and Sam moaned out, “Please… hurry, need you so bad…” Dean placed a kiss against Sam’s ass, licking over the muscle that twitched in reaction, before climbing all the way up Sam’s body and relaxing down to let their bodies press together while he fumbled in the drawer for the lube.

It took two tries to get his shaking hands around the stupid tube of KY, and when he got it on his fingers in a messy glob, he froze, his wits deserting him. He desperately didn‘t want to hurt Sam, and the prickling awareness that he didn’t understand where this sudden urgency was coming from was leaving Dean feeling unsure and off-balance.

“Here,” Dean murmured as soothingly as he could, throwing the tube down on the bed and pushing against the back of Sam’s knee. “You need to tuck your knees underneath you. It’s easier that way.” Sam buried his face in his hands and obediently tucked his legs up, letting Dean slide his ankles apart so his ass was opened up and exposed. Dean leaned forward and pressed feather light kisses against Sam’s back while he pressed the skin warmed lube against Sam’s hole.

The sharp exhalation of air from Sam startled Dean and he pulled back in alarm, but Sam only whispered, “Don’t stop,” and Dean cautiously moved forward once more. He rested his fingers against Sam’s entrance, letting them tickle over the skin as he reached around to grasp Sam’s partially hardened dick with his other hand.

Dean pumped his fist up and down on Sam’s cock several times until he felt it start to stiffen. Sam whimpered into the pillow, pulsing his ass back in search of more contact. Dean had kept his finger pressed firmly against Sam, and it pushed inside up to the first knuckle when Sam surged. Sam froze, little tremors jerking through the muscles of his back and a harsh gasp escaping his throat.

Dean leaned forward, brushing his lips softly against the back of Sam’s neck in a gentle caress. “You okay?” he whispered, every muscle screaming at him to get the fuck off of his brother. He couldn’t shake the rising panic that this wasn’t really what Sam wanted – that there was something more going on here.

“Fuck,” Sam spit out harshly, and abruptly pushed back, driving Dean’s finger all the way inside. Sam moved forward and then pushed backwards once more, thrusting onto Dean’s finger, and he breathed out, “More, Dean. I need…I need…”

Dean closed his eyes and whispered, “Fuck... Me…” The hot inner walls of Sam’s passage were squeezing tightly around Dean’s finger, and his dick was suddenly throbbing painfully in anticipation. His fear fled in the face of Sam’s demanding movements; he grabbed the lube, added more and slipped a second finger inside. He matched Sam’s rhythm, pushing in and out of Sam’s body with rapid movements, barely managing to keep enough of his senses together to stretch Sam thoroughly.

The minutes passed as they moved together, until Sam finally yelled out, “Goddamn it, Dean, quit dicking around. I need you inside of me. Now!”

Anger, impatience, fear, lust and love warred for dominance in Dean’s mind, his turbulent emotions making it hard to think, but he managed to grit out, “ _Not_ gonna hurt you…” He squeezed more lube onto his hand and grabbed Sam’s hip to slow their movements so he could carefully add a third finger.

Sam put his head down and pressed it against his arms; his breaths came out fast and harsh, little sounds of needy pain escaping with every other exhalation. His whole body trembled and fought to move. Sam’s back was covered in sweat, the hair on the back of his neck plastered to his skin. Dean bent forward and ran his tongue across it, licking and kissing and whispering nonsense across Sam’s skin. “I’m here, Sam, right here. It’s just me. Relax, baby, I’m right here...”

Dean continued working his fingers in and out of Sam’s clenched hole, fighting to get the muscles to relax. His brother was still really tight, or, at least, Dean thought so, but he didn’t actually know for sure, and he quietly cursed his own inexperience.

“Damn it, just do it… please,” Sam moaned out, and the quiet, desperate need of Sam’s tone went straight to Dean’s dick.

“Yeah, okay…” he whispered, pulling his hand free and lining up his cock against Sam. Sam froze once more, holding his breath as Dean pushed forward slightly. Nothing happened at first, and Dean had to grab Sam’s hips to hold them steady as Dean increased the pressure. “You okay, Sammy?” Dean couldn’t help himself from whispering once more.

“Fuck, Dean,” Sam gasped out, “just fucking do it already!”

Dean pushed forward with a powerful thrust, and his dick popped past the tight clench of muscle, sinking in more than an inch.

“Shit,” Sam and Dean gasped out at the same time, on the same breath.

It felt… amazing. Tighter and dirtier than any girl he’d ever been with. He’d expected it to be a little different, but he was kind of stunned at how much better, how much hotter, how much more turned on by it he was. Helplessly, he pushed deeper into Sam, needing more contact, needing more…

He slid his dick in bit by bit with ever deepening thrusts. It seemed to take forever until, finally, his balls made contact with the skin of Sam’s ass. Sam was still shaking under him, and he pressed kisses along Sam’s spine in a desperate attempt to relax him. Dean forced himself to still, letting Sam adjust to his presence, but it took every ounce of will power he had to do it.

Sam’s harsh intake of air was all the warning he got before Sam pulled away and then surged back, encouraging Dean to thrust. Fireworks went off in Dean’s groin and went straight to his head. He started thrusting in and out of Sam’s body, luxuriating in it at first and then gradually picking up speed. He could feel his balls drawing up and didn’t think he was going to last long. With one forceful plunge down he paused again, breathing harshly in and out, trying to calm the needy pulsing in his balls.

“Dean?” Sam questioned, breathy and unsure.

“Give me a second, Sam, or I’m gonna come too soon.”

Dean tried to reach around to Sam’s cock, but Sam suddenly pulsed down under him, gasping out, “It’s okay, Dean… please… come.” A tiny moan that almost sounded more like a sob followed the words. Dean opened his mouth to say something, but Sam pushed back, clenching around Dean’s dick and causing his brain to short circuit once more.

Dean stuttered into motion, unable to stop the movement in the face of Sam’s encouragement, and, seconds later, his orgasm crashed over him, buffeting through him in endless waves until he collapsed over Sam, completely spent.

Sam’s was breathing was stuttering out in deep, fierce gasps, his muscles twitching under Dean’s weight. “Sammy?” Dean panted out against Sam’s sweaty skin. “Did… did you…” Dean tried to reach around Sam’s body once more, and the sick certainty of something wrong crawled over his skin when Sam jerked away from his touch and sat up, facing away from him.

“Sam?” Dean said, mirroring Sam’s motion in alarm.

His brother shook his head, kept himself turned away. His body was stilling, but his muscles stayed hard and tense. “I’m fine. Just gonna go clean up,” Sam rasped out. He stood up abruptly and strode into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly before Dean could figure out how to react. The lock clicked into place with an air of finality, snapping Dean out of his post-orgasmic stupor.

Dean climbed off the bed and moved hesitantly toward the bathroom door, trying to figure out what Sam needed as he moved. “Sam?” he called when he reached the door, knocking softly. He put his ear to the wood but heard only silence. Panic and anger clouded his mind, overriding his instinctive caution, and he pounded on the wood. “Open the damn door, Sammy!” he yelled, continuing to pound, undeterred by the ever increasing pain in his fist.

“Back the hell off, Dean!” Sam finally yelled back. “I just… I need a few minutes, okay? Go back to bed.” Sam’s voice was muffled by the thick door, and Dean couldn’t tell much from Sam’s tone beyond the obvious irritation that his words conveyed.

Dean took several deep breaths, forcing down the panic, and then loudly said, “Fine. I’m moving back to the bed, but I’m not going to sleep, so don’t stay in there all night. We need to talk.”

He was greeted with silence, so he added an impatient, “Okay?”

When he still got nothing, he moved warily back to the bed and perched on the edge.

Not taking his eyes off the door, he waited.

~o0O0o~

Sam stared at his reflection in the mirror. The cold fury that had stolen through his mind as soon as Dean had entered him made his eyes look stony and flat. He took a deep breath and held it, then let it out slowly, trying to force his feelings back down. He wasn’t even sure what he was mad about; Dean had done exactly what Sam had begged him for. He looked down at his angrily swollen dick with disgust. He couldn’t bring himself to touch it – the thought of coming made his stomach twist and heave.

The air in the bathroom was rank and stifling. He reached out, opened the small window and pressed his face against the screen to suck in deep lungfuls of clean air, but his stomach refused to settle. He could feel the slow, cold path of semen trickling down the back of his leg, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it, and, whenever he thought about it, his stomach heaved, dry and unproductive and painful. _It’s Dean, just Dean, it’s okay, it’s Dean…_ he thought to himself, trying desperately to stay calm. He gripped the windowsill firmly, needing something tangible to hold on to, while he pressed his forehead harder against the screen, craving the comforting smell of freedom. Suddenly the screen popped out from the pressure, clattering to the ground below.

He jerked back from the noise but forced himself to lean forward once more, until his face was poking slightly out of the window. Somehow, the absence of the flimsy barrier made his heartbeat spike. Dean would have a field day if he knew how irrational Sam was being… except… it _wasn’t_ safe here, but then… it wasn’t really safe anywhere.

A soft noise outside in the trees sent Sam spinning down into a defensive crouch. Operating more on instinct than logic, he kept his eyes locked on the open window and reached an unsteady hand into his duffle to pull out the emergency knife he stored there.

Once the comforting weight of the knife was resting solidly in his hand, he moved backwards and pressed himself against the safety of the wall. He kept the knife at the ready, waiting. This time, he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Shifting winds, the cacophony of cricket song, falling twigs, and the loud, cracking sound of early morning dew dripping from countless tree limbs and leaves filled his senses and made it hard to hear anything specific. Sweat beaded on his skin to trickle down the side of his face in an itchy trail that coated the handle of his blade, making the grip less secure. His fingers clenched around it, but he fought to keep his grip loose and easy – he’d be no good in a fight like this. He sat on the floor, willing his panic to fade away. Little by little, the anger crept back, leaving his emotions a confusing mess churning in his stomach. This wasn’t him. _Sam Winchester_ didn’t fucking _panic_.

His dick throbbed, and he dropped the knife to press his hand against himself. Goddamn it! Why the hell was he still hard? His stomach heaved again and he ripped his hand away to fumble clumsily for his knife. His hand was shaking so badly that he could barely pick it up, and he dropped it twice before he got a firm grip and managed to point it the right way. His gaze locked on the window once more; something could have come through, and he never would have fucking noticed. The crickets were still singing. He couldn’t hear crap over them, and he felt the sting of hopelessness creeping through his head.

His finger throbbed; he hadn’t even noticed that he’d cut it. He glanced down as he uncurled his fingers from around the grip, and his gaze caught on the clean cut. He stared at it, suddenly fascinated by the ruby trickle against the whiteness of his skin.

The throbbing in his finger was echoing the throbbing in his dick, shifting his attention back down.

 _Samuel…_

The name reverberated around the small room, cold and sibilant, and Sam knew what was coming next. _No…_ He cradled the knife against his chest, pressing it against his skin, frantic for a distraction. His brain was playing tricks on him again. “Please, you aren’t real. You’re _dead_!” he forced out, his voice barely audible.

Soft laughter filled the room, taunting him, covering him, bathing his body in filth. He was naked and exposed and helpless, just like he always was. This was never going to end – he would never be free. He closed his eyes, a slowly building litany of, “No,” slipping past his lips in stubborn protest. The hands moved over his skin anyway, one wrapping around his stomach, holding him close, as the other circled over his dick. Sam’s body took on a life of its own, writhing under the invasive touch, a pathetic keening noise drowning everything out.

Its hand jerked over his dick, pulling tightly, and Sam felt the building orgasm that he couldn’t control, couldn’t stop, could never stop. The first painful pulse ripped a scream from his throat, his head slamming back against the wall. His fury left him in a rush as his dick emptied rope after rope of white, cloudy betrayal that ended right as the door to the bathroom slammed open next to him.

“Sammy? _Jesus Christ…_ ” The words filtered through the roaring in his ears, but he couldn’t make sense of them.

Rough hands grabbed his shoulders, and he jerked away, moving against the bathtub and bringing up the knife even though he didn’t really trust it to keep him safe. Faster than he could process, the knife was pulled from his grasp, leaving his fingers tingling, and then the hands were back at his shoulders.

“Get off me!” he yelled, fury making the words grate through his throat. The grasping hands pulled back immediately, and as the haze started to slip from his vision, his brother’s features, etched with concern and tension, swam into focus.

“Dean?” His words were back to sounding weak and pitiful. “Please… just go... Don’t want you to see me like this…”

“Like hell I will,” Dean grated out, and Sam flinched back instinctively from the anger laced tone. Sam tried to move away, but he was shaking so badly that he couldn’t avoid Dean’s strong arms circling around him. He felt the last remains of his rage slipping away as Dean’s hands closed the circle. The last vestiges of his strength drained away along with the anger, and a helpless sob escaped him as he sank into Dean’s calming presence.

“You’re okay, you’re okay…” Dean was murmuring against Sam’s ear over and over, and Sam could feel Dean’s body shaking against his own. It didn’t… that didn’t make sense. Dean wasn’t a pathetic mess like Sam was… Sam tried to pull back to look at Dean, but his brother’s arms tightened, keeping Sam close with their vice-like grip.

Sam moved up onto one knee in an attempt to get more leverage, but he slipped against the floor. It was wet, which… he didn’t remember turning on the water… “Dean?” Sam breathed out, the name a question.

Dean took in a sobbing, aching breath against Sam’s neck and breathed out, “I don’t know how to help you, Sammy. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

The confusion and despair coloring Dean’s voice caused Sam’s heart to clench painfully in his chest, and he jerked back helplessly in Dean’s immovable grip. “I don’t… I need…” He couldn’t make sense of the jumble in his head.

Dean’s arms suddenly released Sam; Dean was pushing him back, his body unstable on the slick floor, and Sam looked down. The floor was a mess of red smears.

Dean’s hands were moving over Sam’s chest, which abruptly flared with pain. When Sam looked down, he discovered his skin was crisscrossed with shallow, and not-so-shallow, cuts and his right hand was dripping with blood.

Sam felt slow and thick, his head pulsing in time with the pain from the cuts, and he couldn’t do anything but stare stupidly down at himself.

Dean grabbed Sam’s hand, looked closely at his fingers and muttered, “This is gonna need stitches.” He pressed a washcloth into Sam’s hand and ordered, “Hold this tight. We’ve got to move you so that I have more room to work.”

It was getting more and more difficult to focus on Dean’s words. Sam’s eyelids blinked closed, and that simple action filled him with a wash of pleasure. He let the tension bleed out of his body as he slowly collapsed in on himself. Awareness of everything around him darkened, and, desperate for the relief of oblivion, he couldn’t make himself fight it.

Even his brother’s anxious call wasn’t enough to pull him back.


	4. Chapter 4

The gravel around the Impala crunched loudly, almost startling after Dean’s quiet walk back from burying the body. There’d been traces of sulfur in the small clearing. The man had looked like an Outbreak casualty and Sam had been covered in blood. Dean couldn’t quite make all the pieces make sense, but it certainly hadn’t been anything good.

He stashed the shovel in the Impala’s trunk and jogged up the porch steps. Sam’d been sleeping quietly when Dean left, but that could have easily changed while he was gone. Dean hadn’t wanted to leave, but he hadn’t thought Sam would be up to dealing with the body, either, and they couldn’t very well just leave it there for anybody to find. Not until after they found Bobby, at least.

He turned the knob and gently edged the door open, hoping Sam would still be asleep and he hadn’t worried Sam unnecessarily. No such luck. Sam was at the table staring morosely at his open laptop. He looked pale and tired, the hand resting on the table visibly shaking, but he didn’t look up when Dean walked in.

“Sorry, I… meant to be back before you woke up, but the body’s taken care of,” Dean blurted out, feeling guilty.

“It’s fine. I’m not mad at you. I figured that’s what you were doing.” Sam’s voice sounded as washed out as the rest of him, and Dean was tempted to change his mind about making Sam talk. He’d be a coward to keep letting this go, though.

“You should be in bed. Why’re you up?” Dean moved around the table and put his hands on Sam’s back, intent on getting his brother to lie back down and maybe get a little more sleep. Okay, so maybe he was a coward.

“I’m fine, Dean,” Sam said dismissively, flinching away slightly from Dean’s touch.

Dean stepped back, ignoring the tiny flash of hurt at Sam’s reaction. “You’re fine. Sure. We’ve had this conversation before, Sam. Trouble is, you don’t look so fine to me.” He pulled out the second chair and sat down close to his brother, looking pointedly at Sam’s trembling hand. “Come back to bed. I’ll go with you.”

Sam’s gaze flicked to Dean’s before going back to the screen, his features hardening. “Bobby’s out there. There’s no time to lie around in bed… or don’t you care about him anymore?” Sam huffed out.

“Ouch. You’re in a fucking mood. That was still a little uncalled for though, don’tcha think? You aren’t going to do Bobby any good by driving yourself into the ground, you know. You’re in no shape to hunt right now.”

The glare Sam shot him was withering. “I’m the one that gets to decide that, Dean, and I’m fine.” Sam’s words were getting louder as his anger escalated, although Dean didn’t have a clue what the hell they were fighting about.

Dean couldn’t stop his own frustration from surging up to match his brother’s. “I don’t think you’re in any shape to decide crap for yourself, and since it’s my back you’re supposed to have, yeah, I think maybe I do have a say. You can’t even stop your hands from shaking, now get the hell back to bed!”

Sam moved his hands under the table, hiding them from view, and moved his focus back to the computer screen, his face a mask of fury. “Last I checked, you weren’t Dad, Dean. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

It was Dean’s turn to flinch back. “Like you’d listen to me if I was!” he yelled back before he could censor himself. He took a deep breath, letting it out slow. He didn’t know what bug had crawled up Sam’s ass, but Dean wasn’t going to help it crawl deeper. He lowered his voice and added evenly, “Not trying to tell you what to do, but it is my job to look after you. Come back to bed. Just for an hour. We can decide what to do then.”

Reaching down to grab the front of Sam’s shirt, Dean gently started to pull Sam out of the seat. He felt Sam tense under his hands a fraction before Sam was up out of the chair and slamming his fist into Dean’s face. Spinning back under the force of the attack, Dean staggered away. Managing to catch himself before hitting the ground, Dean spun back around in a defensive crouch and gave his brother a stunned look.

Sam was rooted to the spot, his face white and his eyes wide with horror. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “God, I didn’t mean to… I’m so sorry.” Sam’s stunned paralysis crumbled and he stumbled backwards, hitting the bed and dropping down heavily.

Dean could feel something trickling under his throbbing nose, and he wiped at it. His sleeve came away bloody, but he didn’t have any emotional energy left to think about it. Moving cautiously forward, he stopped in front of his brother.

Sam started to reach out, almost touching Dean’s face before his gaze slid away and he snatched his hand back like touch was dangerous. He wasn’t fast enough to keep Dean from seeing the red staining it.

Dean surged forward and wrapped his hands around it, pulling it close for inspection. He could feel Sam pulling back, but he stubbornly refused to release Sam’s hand. Some of the stitches were popped. The whole hand was swollen, probably from whatever Sam had done to it last night in the woods.

“Damn it,” Dean muttered, “You messed up all my hard work.”

“Dean,” Sam begged, “just… leave me alone, okay?”

“No.” His response was short and clipped but Dean didn’t care; this wasn’t open to negotiation.

“Do I have to hit you again?” Sam yelled, startling Dean into releasing his hand. “Get the fuck away from me!”

Sam’s mood changes were making Dean’s brain hurt, but at least the angry words were somehow better than the broken tone of a moment ago. Dean put his hand on Sam’s thigh, letting his thumb soothe over the denim. “I can’t believe I’m the one that has to say this,” Dean said calmly, “but you have to talk to me, Sammy. What’s going on with you? What happened last night?”

Sam went still, and his eyes slid shut, his jaw clenched so tight it had to hurt.

He jerked his head to the side and back in silent denial.

Dean reached out and ran his hand across Sam’s jaw. He leaned in close enough to feel Sam’s forceful exhalations. “Quit pushing me away. I’m not going anywhere, so the only thing pushing me away’s gonna accomplish is hurting me. That what you want? You need to hurt me to make yourself feel better, Sammy?”

Sam exhaled jaggedly, the tension suddenly bleeding out of him and leaving him slumped with fatigue. “There’s demon sign in the area,” Sam said wearily. “Found it on the computer this morning. Bobby’s out there, alone.”

“I know, and we’ll get to him, but you’re my priority right now. You come first. Always. Besides, we aren’t going anywhere until you tell me what the hell happened out there last night, ‘cause it’s gotta be related.”

Sam started to turn his head away again, and Dean wrapped his hands around his face and pulled him down to brush his lips softly against Sam’s. “Trust me, Sam. Let me in…”

Sam slid off the side of the bed and wrapped himself around Dean tightly, pulling their bodies in close. They stayed that way for barely a minute before Sam started to pull away again. “We have to take care of your face. It’s a mess.”

“So’s your hand,” Dean threw back without missing a beat, tightening his grip and reeling Sam back in. “We’ll both live.” Dean pulled them both down and leaned against the bed, pulling his brother to sit between his legs and wrapping his arms around Sam securely so that Sam’s back was tight against Dean’s chest. He pressed a kiss to the top of Sam’s head. “Talk to me.”

Sam leaned back and bent his knees up, tension still evident in the corded muscles of his back and arms. “I don’t think I can,” Sam finally breathed.

“I’m sorry, but you don’t really have a choice. I can’t keep operating in the dark. Start with what happened in the woods. I need to know that before we go look for Bobby. I know there was a demon – there was sulfur in the area of the body. What I don’t know is why you’re so reluctant to talk about it.”

“I killed him,” Sam huffed out abruptly, his voice strained.

“By yourself? How?” Dean couldn’t keep the skepticism from edging into his voice. He’d assumed the demon had decided to vacate an already dying body on its own or something.

The pause was long enough that Dean was beginning to wonder if Sam was clamming up again when he whispered, “With my fucking mind.”

Dean froze, unable to process Sam’s statement for a moment. This was so much more than a little telekinesis and some disturbing dreams. “Holy fuck,” he blurted, “You telling me you killed a demon with just your freaky powers?”

Sam went even more rigid. Silently cursing his inability to think before speaking, Dean shook his head against Sam’s back. He cast around in his head for a more palatable explanation, and then threw out, “Guy was probably already severely injured before the demon left, Sam.”

“No. Whatever I did, the bleeding started before the demon was gone,” Sam husked. “It was like I… I don’t know, like the pressure of the demon welling out of him overloaded him or something. Once I started I couldn’t… it didn’t even occur to me to try to stop. I didn’t want to. I wanted that demon dead more than I wanted the man to live.”

Sam was raking himself over the coals for this, as usual, but Dean couldn’t get his brain to come up with a denial that wouldn’t sound like a platitude, and several minutes passed in silence. Finally, Dean asked, “What happened? From the beginning. Don’t just give me the end and expect me to be able to make it make sense.”

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slow, but his words were still laced with tension when he spoke. “The power boost I’ve been getting from us being together… sometimes it builds up, and I have to go burn some of it off.”

When Sam paused, Dean couldn’t stop himself from filling the silence, more than a little irritated. “And you were planning on telling me about this when?”

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered.

The quiet apology cut sharp pain through his heart. Sam had apologized enough to last them a lifetime. “I don’t need an apology, I need you to tell me what’s going on with you and to stop keeping things from me.”

“I don’t… I can‘t even… God, I don’t even _know_ what’s going on with me!” Sam replied bitterly. “It’s been almost a year, and I’m still so fucked up I can’t figure out how I’m making it through the day without losing it! What the fuck, Dean? I’m a hunter. I’ve been hurt plenty of times before. Why can’t I move past this?”

By the end, Sam was shaking so badly that his final words were almost unintelligible, but Dean didn’t think he was actually crying. Dean tightened his grip around Sam, trying to will his strength into his brother. He wanted to fix this. He didn’t know how. He brushed his lips against Sam’s hair and whispered, “Nine months isn’t actually that long, and I don’t know if this is something you can just get over.”

Sam laughed, short and loud and angry. He tried to pull forward, pull away, but Dean refused to let him, holding on even tighter. “Don’t, please. Stop fighting me. I’m not the one you’re mad at,” he murmured against the back of Sam’s neck. Sam tensed and shook his head, the fight leaving him enough to allow Dean to pull him in close. They sat together for a while, and Sam’s tremors gradually faded, until he rested, still, in Dean’s arms.

When Sam spoke again, his voice was flat, emotionless. “I must have sensed the demon when I went out to use my powers. I followed the trail without paying a lot of attention to where I was going and managed to get myself a little lost.

“It found me out there. It knew exactly who I was. It knew about the attack. It knew about the curse. He taunted me with it…” Sam stilled again. Dean held his breath, knowing there was more and willing Sam to keep going. Sam’s voice hitched as he continued, “It held me down and kissed me. Hinted it was going to try to do more. I… got angry. The power… somehow I just knew what to do. I ripped the demon out of him, Dean. Violently.”

A fierce wash of protectiveness flowed over Dean. He wanted to wrap himself around his brother and never let go. Only the intensity of the feeling was new, though, and he knew Sam would never let him get away with it. He struggled to stomp his feelings down and go into hunter mode. They had a problem that went beyond the incubus attack now. “What exactly did it say about the curse?”

“I… it’s all a little fuzzy now. Something about how I should be happy about the curse because it makes me powerful. I think it… I think it liked that idea.”

Shit. The last thing they needed was for Sam to be coveted by demons who might want to take advantage of his powers. This was not good news.

Sam kept talking, distracting Dean from his worrying. “I found a lot of demon sign when I looked online. I think whatever Bobby is into involves demons, and there’s probably more than one.”

“Okay. You find anything else useful?”

“No. I think that’s it.”

Dean felt Sam finally relax back against him, and he hated himself a little for pushing, but he needed to know. “What happened in the bathroom last night?”

“I’m done talking, Dean,” Sam growled out. He surged forward, ripping himself from Dean’s arms to move toward the goddamn bathroom, which, _no fucking way_. Dean caught Sam just as his brother’s hand brushed the knob and swung him around, pushing him back against the door.

Sam couldn’t keep the wince of pain from crossing his features, although it was quickly masked with anger. “Leave me the fuck alone, Dean!” Sam yelled.

Sam’s anger crashed into him like a physical blow, like something rank and wrong, and Dean tightened his grip, forced himself not to pull away. He dropped his head down and brushed their lips together, darted his tongue out for a quick taste before saying firmly, “No.”

He dropped his right hand down to run over Sam’s chest, pressing lightly, and a whimper of pain escaped from Sam, quiet and choked back, but there. “You do this on purpose last night, Sammy?” Dean demanded angrily, “Did you hurt yourself on purpose?”

“No,” Sam denied hotly.

 _Liar_. The feeling of betrayal was sharp, even though Dean knew, positions reversed, he wouldn’t want to talk about it either. He flinched back, his body preparing to move away; if Sam didn’t trust him enough to be honest with him... but he didn’t have the luxury of shutting down and ending the conversation. They were too intertwined with each other now.

He pressed harder against Sam’s chest where he knew the deepest of the cuts lay. “You’re telling me you didn’t pick up the knife and cut yourself deliberately last night?” he asked fiercely. “’Cause from where I’m standing that’s pretty fucking hard to believe. Look me in the eyes and tell me that’s not what happened.”

Sam’s gaze stayed lowered, and Dean felt his anger slipping away. Cold, helpless fear flowed in to take its place. Sam was hurting himself, and Dean didn’t know what to do.

He’d thought his dad had raised him to handle anything. He didn’t know how to handle this. His eyes burned in the face of Sam’s pain, and he slammed his fist, the one that wasn’t pressed against Sam’s chest, against the door, hoping the pain would be enough to chase his weakness away. His face was hot and wet. He couldn’t do this. All he was doing, all he had been doing since Sam was taken from right under his nose, was fucking everything up. Right now, Sam needed him to be strong. Dean couldn’t even do that. He was failing; he hadn’t fixed anything and he didn’t know what to do anymore.

Sam’s hand on his face was gentle as he nudged it up, forcing their eyes to meet. “Dean? I’m just… Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Fuck, Dean was tired of hearing Sam apologize.

“I didn’t… it wasn’t on purpose, okay?” Sam looked scared, his voice small and lost. “I don’t… it’s all kind of a blur. Just, sometimes I get panic attacks, and I thought I heard something, so I got out the knife, but then, it was like he was there, like I was back there, and he was…”

Sam’s voice broke, and he swallowed hard before continuing in a rough whisper, “It… was touching me, and I don’t… I didn’t even remember the knife was still in my hands, I just… it was an accident, okay?” Sam opened scared eyes and sought contact with Dean’s. His voice grew louder as he pleaded, as if he didn’t think Dean would believe him. “That’s all it was. Just an accident. I’m okay. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m okay.”

Sam was shaking again, his words frantic; he was tripping over himself trying to get them out fast enough to reassure Dean that everything was fucking okay. Sam wrapped himself around Dean, pushed in close and whispered over and over again that he was okay, for Dean not to worry.

Dean remembered in a sickening rush that, since the attack, since the curse had taken hold, Sam had been sensing his emotions if the feelings were strong enough. Bit by determined bit, he climbed out of the well of self-pity he’d fallen into and let himself lean into Sam’s embrace like a life-line.

Sam’s words slowly trailed off, and they stood there quietly in each other’s arms for a while, just holding each other… until Dean finally felt compelled to break the silence in order to get the answers he needed.

“How often?” Dean whispered.

“What?” Sam breathed out, slightly confused.

“You said you sometimes get panic attacks, and, well, what you described sounded like a flashback. How often? Is getting flashbacks new? Have you hurt yourself before?”

Sam buried his face against Dean’s neck and breathed in deeply, and the tension in his shoulders that Dean’s questions had spiked seemed to ease a bit. “I don’t know. Haven’t really been keeping track. A few times a month, maybe? None of it was really new, but… I haven’t… not with a knife… but…” He let out a self-deprecating snort and glanced down at Dean’s abused hand, “Punching a wall is manly, right?”

Dean flashed back to a month ago, to Sam’s knuckles abraded and deeply bruised; he’d let Sam just brush it off. He couldn’t quite make himself match his brother’s short laugh. “Yeah, sure. Just… you can’t keep hiding this shit from me. I don’t… I don‘t think I can keep doing this if you keep shutting me out. I need to know we’re in this together. I can’t lose you, Sam. Not now. It would kill me.”

Sam nodded against Dean’s neck. “You won’t. I’m sor…” Sam flinched at almost the same time Dean did and cut the word off. Dean allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction. He twined his fingers through the hair on the back of Sam’s head and pulled him tighter. “I shouldn’t have made you… last night… that was so stupid. God, why can’t I move the fuck on? I’m so pathetic.”

Dean could feel the shoulder of his shirt becoming damp under the press of Sam’s face. He massaged his fingers against Sam’s scalp, trying to soothe. “Don’t think there’s a timeline for these things, Sam, and you aren’t. You’re the strongest person I know.” Sam shuddered against him. “And I love you.”

He didn’t really mean it as a joke, but his teasing tone had the effect he intended. Sam laughed harshly against his skin and then settled more firmly into their embrace. “Me, too, man. Me, too,” he whispered.

Dean lost track of how long they clung to each other, leaning there against the bathroom door, before he dimly realized he could use the situation to his advantage. The lack of sleep from the night before was catching up with him. He suspected he needed to rest almost as much as his brother did. Sam was already sagging in his arms. “Hey… can we… I need to feel you close. Can we just lie down for a bit?”

Sam nodded wearily, and they moved towards the bed, crawling under the covers to tangle their bodies together. Dean couldn’t have said who passed out first.


	5. Chapter 5

The town wasn’t big, just one road with several stores and a small church not too far down the street from the bar. Sam snorted quietly to himself; at least the bar would make Dean happy. There were almost no cars on the street, though, and most of the businesses were closed. The height of tourist season was long over, but the town shouldn’t be completely deserted already. It was the middle of the afternoon and there was nobody on the street at all.

Dean pulled over, turned off the car and opened his door. They sat in silence for several minutes, waiting for some indication of life in the small town, but they were greeted with only the sounds of wildlife and wind. Nobody came out of a building or shouted a greeting. There were no sounds of children playing, no sounds of people, period.

“Well,” Dean finally announced, swinging himself easily out of the car, “I’m thirsty.” He gave Sam a meaningful look and headed into the bar. Sam got out uneasily and followed him.

The dim room was eerily silent and completely devoid of people as well - except for the bartender who jerked up at their entrance and practically stumbled over himself to get to the counter, a cold sweat quickly beading up on his glossy forehead.

“What can I get for you?” the man asked, his voice trembling. Dean looked back at Sam with a _what the fuck_ expression on his face, and then moved over to the bar.

“How ‘bout a couple of beers, whatever’s on tap,” Dean asked with fake cheer.

Dean took a seat on a barstool, and Sam sat next to him, flashing the petrified man his most charming smile. Watching the man fumble down two glasses, Sam added softly, “Things are pretty quiet around here.”

The man’s hands were shaking so badly that the beer spilled all over his fingers and the counter as he set the full glasses down. He swore, grabbed a wipe rag and ran it over the smoothly polished wood, casting anxious glances at them and murmuring, “Sorry, so sorry,” under his breath.

“Hey, no problem.” Sam picked up the sticky glass in front of him and took a sip, sighing contentedly. “’S good,” he said, raising his glass in a small salute. The man just backed away, watching them uneasily.

“You got a food menu?” Dean asked, and the guy actually paled a little more.

“We’ve… we’ve go… got peanuts and p… pretzels,” the guy stammered. He pulled a couple of bowls up from under the counter and managed to spill the contents when he set them down too hard.

“Dude, what the hell? What’s got you so freaked?” Dean demanded sharply, his patience apparently already giving out.

The man emitted a low whining sound, and Sam shot his brother an annoyed glance. “We aren’t going to hurt you,” Sam said, deliberately keeping his voice soft. He looked around the room, trying to spot anyone hidden in a corner or under a table, but there was nothing. “Why don’t you tell us what’s wrong? Maybe we can help.”

They stared at each other for a few minutes, and in the face of Sam’s calm patience a little of the fear seemed to slip away, easing the man’s expression towards wary. “Look,” he finally said, his voice still strung with tension, “if you’re just passing through, ain’t nothin’ open around here. You best just be on your way.”

“Actually,” Dean said, irritating Sam once more by cutting off his reply, “we’re looking for a friend of ours. Bobby Singer. Maybe you know him?”

Dean slid a small picture across the counter. The man glanced down and picked up the photo, and then immediately dropped it, his eyes widening in alarm. He started to back away, and then visibly stopped himself, locking his panicked gaze on Dean, silently rooted to the spot.

Reaching out slowly, Dean picked up the picture and drawled, “So… I take it you do know him then? Have you seen him around? Do you know where we could find him?”

“Big house at the top of Beede Hill Grade,” he replied hoarsely.

Sam exchanged a wary glance with Dean before turning and asking, “How much do we owe you?”

The man just stared at them with huge eyes and shook his head.

“Okay, then,” Dean said, dropping a ten on the bar. “Thanks for your help.”

They both got up and backed toward the door. The man didn’t take his eyes off of them, frantically tracking their every movement. Just as they reached the door, something in him seemed to crumble, seemed to break as he called out, “Please! Don’t hurt my daughter!” He stumbled backwards until he hit the wall and slid down, mumbling the request over and over.

Sam exchanged another quick glance with Dean, and this time, Dean seemed to take the hint and left, leaving Sam to it. Moving slowly back over to the weeping man, Sam crouched down so he was less intimidating. “Hey, dude,” he tried to soothe, but the man just kept repeating over and over, “Please don’t hurt her, please don’t hurt her…” Concerned, Sam tried to coax the man to talk, tried to find out what she looked like, what her name was, anything, but the man was incoherent, and Sam finally had to admit defeat and walk away.

Sam found his brother outside leaning against the Impala. “Dude, you get anything out of Mr. Terrified?”

“No, but I think we should get up to that house. Bobby’s definitely gotten himself into the middle of something.”

~o0O0o~

The house was big and sprawling and looked like it had definitely seen better days. Part of the wrap-around porch had rotted away on the side, and the paint was peeling off everywhere, giving off an ominous vibe that would have fit in perfectly in one of those B horror films that Dean seemed to like so much. Just like the rest of the town, the house appeared to be dead.

Dean had parked the Impala a little way down the steep road, and they were walking in on foot so they wouldn’t alert whatever was inside to their presence. The cuts running across Sam’s chest pulled uncomfortably as he moved. It occurred to him that he wasn’t in the best shape to be on a hunt, but this was Bobby. They couldn’t put this off anymore. He was vaguely upset with Dean for making them go back to bed – they’d both ended up falling asleep. He desperately hoped Bobby hadn’t had to pay for his weakness.

They weren’t talking about it, but Sam was seriously creeped out by the man in town. Whatever was here was seriously bad news. They moved quietly along the tree-line, staying out of sight of the house until they located a basement window that was close to the edge of the clearing. Sam made short work of the lock, and they slipped inside. So far, this was a little too easy. Maybe the man had lied, and there was nothing here.

Sam shook his head slightly; they were never that lucky.

Sam dumped a thick layer of salt along the windows while Dean gave the basement a quick search. If nothing else, the basement could serve as a place to retreat. Dean took point, and Sam followed him up, both moving carefully to avoid making noise on the rickety stairs. The door at the top opened out into the house, which was good; they wouldn’t have to redo the salt line if they had to come back through in a hurry.

Dean took out some more salt and laid it across the threshold. After putting the salt away, he picked up his shotgun and cocked it. He put his hand on the knob and looked pointedly back at Sam to be sure he was ready. Ironic, considering Sam had been pushing Dean to move faster ever since they’d gotten to the stupid town. Sam nodded once, only a little tersely, and Dean turned the knob, opening the door slightly.

Movement and soft sighs could be heard from deeper in the house. Dean glanced back at Sam with a questioning look on his face. Sam shrugged, not really wanting to actually identify the sounds, which were decidedly obscene in nature.

Dean looked inside for a moment and then pushed the door open further to reveal an empty kitchen, run-down and dated like everything else about the old house, complete with an old 50’s-style refrigerator. Stepping cautiously over the salt line, Sam followed Dean into the room and closed the door behind them, carefully making sure that the door didn’t quite latch so they could open it easily if they needed to later.

They moved through a dining room and out into a large entryway with a staircase leading up to the left. The front door was to the right and an arched entrance in the middle of the wall ahead of them lead into a large room that curved around to the right. The sounds were much louder here, long moans and the slick slapping of flesh against flesh; it was clear that whatever was here was in the next room, and that there were a lot of them.

Dean moved quickly to the right side of the arch, Sam at his back, and peered around the edge to get a look into the room. He rapidly ducked back and pressed his back to the wall, out of sight of the room. A barely audible, “Shit,” fell from his lips. Dean looked pale, but he only paused for a moment before signaling a retreat towards the kitchen.

“It’s a freaking orgy in there,” Dean whispered as soon as they returned to the door into the basement, and Sam had to stifle his amusement at Dean’s affronted tone. “I definitely caught a flash of black eyes. More than one, and there were at least five people in that room.”

That was sobering.

“Any sign of Bobby?” Sam forced himself to ask; if Bobby was in there, Sam really wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“No,” Dean choked out quietly, clearly startled by the thought. Sam had to suppress a grin at his brother’s expense. They needed to stay focused. Dean shuddered dramatically, and then whispered, “I think we can get by ‘em. They seemed pretty distracted. Maybe we’ll find something upstairs.”

Sam nodded his agreement, and they made their way up the stairs, only stopping so that Sam could lay another line of salt along the front door and then along a step as soon as they were beyond the sight lines of the front room.

The stairway opened into a long hall stretching left and right, all the doors along the length of it closed. Dean turned right and moved to the first one, pressing his ear against it. After a moment, he signaled that he didn’t hear anything. He slowly turned the knob before swinging the door open wide to reveal a large bathroom.

The sickly-sweet smell of copper assaulted them immediately, permeating the room with the heavy reek. The room was covered with blood, as if someone had washed the walls and floors with it, and the bathtub was completely full of it, two dead bodies floating in a sea of red, limbs dangling over the sides of the tub. 

Thank God, neither one of the corpses was Bobby.

Sam stifled his gag as Dean softly closed the door and leaned his head against it, both of them needing to catch their breaths before moving on to the next door. That had been… Sam couldn’t allow himself to stop and dwell. They didn’t have the luxury of time right now. He looked over at Dean, and Dean nodded grimly, quickly masking his haunted expression and signaling his readiness to continue.

Sam took point, trading with Dean, and waited for his brother to move into position before placing his hand on the next knob. Dean nodded and Sam opened it, carefully at first, then wider when soft whimpering drew his gaze to the corner. Three girls, probably younger than Sam, huddled together, gagged and tied with thick ropes. Sam rushed over to them, laying his shotgun down so he could wrestle with the bindings. He heard Dean close the door gently and move over to join them.

The knots were tight, and it took a while to get them loose, the girls cringing away from them the entire time. Sam got the first one’s arms free, but she stayed passive, not moving to help herself at all. He moved to her gag, but hesitated before pulling it off. “We’re here to help you,” he told her gently. “I’m gonna take the gag off, but you can’t make any noise, okay?”

The girl looked at him with wide, frightened eyes for a minute before slowly nodding. He reached around her head and untied the cloth, careful not to use any sharp movements. Chaffed raw from the tightly tied cloth, blood had matted around her mouth, and he had to peel the filthy material away from her skin. She didn’t move when he was done, just sat there silently, shaking, with tears running down her ghostly white face.

He couldn’t do anything else for her at the moment, and with one last concerned glance, he moved on to the next one. With Dean there to help him it didn’t take long to finish getting the girls loose. The three collapsed in on themselves when they were free, and Dean gave Sam a look. “We’re gonna have to get them down to the basement before we do anything else,” Dean said quietly.

None of them looked like they had a thought in their head for escape. Sam nodded, and Dean moved back to stand guard at the door. “Hey,” Sam coaxed, “do you want to get out of here?” Sam ducked his head, trying to get the girl closest to him to acknowledge him, but she just buried her face against the other two.

He didn’t know what the girls had been through, but it was pretty easy to guess. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath, chills suddenly racing across his skin. They were all three of them broken, just like he’d been…

 _been_ …

He was better now than he’d been before. Was a little better every day. He forced himself to let the air go slowly and opened his eyes. They’d be okay if he could just get them out of here. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she moaned, loud and agonized.

Sam instinctively jerked his hand back. He desperately didn’t want to add anything to their pain and fear. Even before he could cast a helpless glance at Dean, one of the other girls looked up and spit at him, hitting him on the cheek with a glob of gelatinous spittle.

Sam forced himself to calmly wipe it off with his hand and then into the carpet. The girls were clearly traumatized; getting their trust was going to be rough. Getting mad at the girl certainly wouldn’t help. He managed to keep his feelings locked down and repeated softly, “We’re here to _help_ you. Let us help you.”

Fierce hatred blazed in her eyes. She didn’t back down, didn’t move or say anything to acknowledge that he’d said something. He raised a hand toward her slowly, watched her whole body stiffen like a cornered cat, and thought better of it. There was probably no way to force them to move without alerting the entire house to their presence.

At a loss, Sam looked over at Dean and said, “How ‘bout we salt the door and window and come back for them after we find Bobby?”

Clearly uncomfortable, Dean shrugged and replied, “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Sam dug some more salt out of his pack and laid it along the window ledge while Dean listened at the door. “Still sounds quiet,” Dean said as Sam joined him. There was carpet on the floor, and the door opened inward, which meant they were going to have to put the salt on the outside of the room. Dean reached out and turned the knob.

The door slammed open so hard Dean was thrown back against the wall with a sickening thud. “Dean!” Sam yelled, stunned to see Bobby standing in the open doorway. One of the girls screamed, and the other two started wailing loudly, creating a sudden chaos of sound that was like nails down a chalkboard. With rapidly building dread, Sam tossed half of the container of salt in Bobby’s face. He immediately flinched back, turning his head away and shaking it before turning to glare back at Sam. His eyes were a solid, inky black. “Shit,” Sam swore, fear for the older man making his legs turn to jell-o.

Bobby was still standing partially in the open doorway, and Sam looked on with horror as Dean threw himself against the door, trying to push him back. The door just banged against Bobby like it had hit a slab of concrete, vibrating on its hinges. Bobby smiled and simply pushed it back, sliding Dean effortlessly behind it and stepping into the room with a soft chuckle.

“Hello, boys. Good of you to drop by. Been waitin’ for you,” Bobby drawled, ignoring Dean and stepping close to Sam. He pushed in until their bodies were almost touching, forcing Sam to take a step back. Reaching out with false affection, Bobby tried to lay his hand on Sam’s face, but Sam flinched back, blocking it and knocking it away before he could make contact.

Bobby’s other hand darted out in response, slamming into Sam’s chest hard enough to send him spinning into the side of the bed. Sam’s knees gave out, and he slid down until they hit the ground as he struggled to breathe around the pain.

“Hey, asswipe!” Dean yelled, just before the blast of his shotgun echoed through the small room.

Sam pushed himself up, feeling Dean’s arms circling around him. With his brother’s help, he got dizzily to his feet. They were almost to the hallway when Sam felt raw power slam into the both of them, forcing them out through the doorway and pinning them to the far wall of the hallway. Sam strained against the pressure, his panic rising sharp and hot when he couldn’t even shift his limbs against the wall. By the sound of the strained breathing next to him, Dean was having exactly the same problem.

Bobby turned away from them, seemingly unconcerned, to look back into the room. “Shut the hell up!” he roared, and the girls went immediately, disturbingly quiet.

“Now,” he said, slinking up to Sam and pressing close, “Where were we?” Bobby buried his face in Sam’s neck and inhaled deeply. Sam’s breath caught in his throat, panic crushing his chest like a vise.

“Stop.” Sam wanted to stay stoically silent, but the word slipped past his lips before he could prevent it.

“You smell so damn good, boy,” Bobby breathed, pulling back just enough to look in Sam’s eyes. “You positively reek of power and sex.” Bobby brought his hand up and ran it over Sam’s chest provocatively. Sam slammed his head, the only part of his body he could actually move, against the wall as he futilely continued to struggle.

“Well, you smell like you rotten eggs, so why don’t you back the hell off?” Dean growled.

Bobby snorted, but kept his eyes fixed on Sam’s, moving his hand up to grip Sam’s chin and leaning in close so that their faces were only inches apart. The demon’s eyes were still pitch black, and Sam found it comforting that he didn’t have to look into the older hunter’s kind eyes.

“So. Since my daddy killed your mommy,” the demon said with Bobby’s low, gravelly voice, making Sam’s stomach roil with the wrongness of it, “I’d say that kinda makes us kin in a way, don’t you think?” Dean snarled next to them, swearing under his breath, but the demon took no notice, smirking, “And I know what you like to do with your kin…”

Fear jack-knifed through Sam’s body as the demon brought its lips in close, brushing them over Sam’s. A harsh whimpering sound escaped his mouth, and he was vaguely aware of his brother swearing next to him. _Not Bobby, not Bobby, not Bobby_ … He repeated the words to himself over and over, willing himself to believe them.

He could feel his power welling up, aching for a target, but the thought of Bobby with lifeless eyes, covered in blood, had Sam suddenly consumed with the need to hold it back, even in the face of the perverted intent the creature’s closeness conveyed.

The demon snaked its tongue out, running it wetly over Sam’s tightly closed lips. Sam couldn’t keep another small whimper from escaping. Bobby… the demon, forced its tongue past his lips, and Sam yielded in despair, unable to make himself hurt the man he respected as a mentor. Sam’s focus narrowed to the probing tongue running over the inside of his mouth, tasting him, unable to process anything else. His power surged dangerously, and Sam clutched at it, barely holding it in check.

With a mocking laugh, the demon pulled back slightly and said derisively, “What, not happy with our little gift, Sammy? You know, I can take it back. We don’t _need_ you to follow this path. My father will have you, one way or another.”

Sam heard Dean’s sharp intake of breath next to him, and he managed to turn his head enough to see the cold fury etching his brother’s features. Sam’s head was swimming with raw power, and it took a moment for the demon’s words to penetrate the fog. Sam jerked his head back and managed to choke out a belated, “What? How?”

The demon laughed loudly, “What’s it worth to you, Sammy boy? What are you willing to give if I take back the whole attack? Make it so you don’t have to fuck your brother anymore? Make it so you still have _one sliver_ of self-worth?”

The power inside of him felt like electrical pulses traveling under his skin and trying to burn their way out. Sam struggled to think beyond the crackle and pull of his power and make sense of Bobby’s words. It wasn’t fucking possible to undo what had been done months ago, was it?

“What do you want?” Dean demanded, his voice raw and angry and just a little bit… eager.

“There’re six hundred and sixty six roads, and they all lead to the same place,” Bobby continued, still flatly ignoring Dean. “See, the irony is, that day? Dean had gotten bored waiting around for you. He was coming early to meet you at the library. Would’ve made it in time and everything. Averted the whole thing. So, we caused a little accident. Held Dean up a good five minutes.”

“Fuck,” Dean breathed out brokenly. “I’m gonna to wipe your ass off the planet.”

The corner of Bobby’s mouth twitched up slightly at Dean’s words, the first sign the demon had given that he even knew Dean was there, and Sam glared at him, seeing only the demon who’d fucked up their lives. Bobby leaned in so close Sam could feel the demon’s breath on his lips once more, but Sam stubbornly didn’t flinch away. With barely concealed glee the demon placed its finger lightly on Sam’s lips and taunted, “He missed you by _minutes_.”

Fury ripped through Sam, and he felt the tight grip on his power slip. “No!” he yelled, terrified that he’d soon have Bobby’s blood on his hands.

“That’s okay, we’re done here anyway.” The demon pulled back and opened his mouth, black smoke spilling out of his throat in billowing bursts that roared through the house. Screams started echoing through the rest of the house, and more black smoke flowed up the stairs, all of it meeting and mixing together in a spinning vortex that hit the ceiling and plunged through, leaving the house empty and quiet except for the harsh sobbing wails that continued to echo up the stairs.

The power was still there, raging inside of him and robbed of its target. Sam could feel it spilling out, seeking destruction, so he slammed it into the wall, ripping a hole through to the next room and down through the floor. The house shook: every board, every wall, and every corner of the foundation. The force holding Sam and his brother to the wall disappeared just as the last of the smoke left Bobby; all three of them slumped down to the floor at the same time.

“Fuck,” Dean muttered under his breath, “Holy, fucking fuck.”

Sam was shaking from the force of the power that was still pulsing through him, shaking even as the power slowly quieted. Dean reached out and cupped Sam’s face with his hand, forcing his head up. “You okay?” he asked, fear leaving his voice hoarse.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Sam lied, pulling his face away to look over at Bobby. The man was hunched over, silent tremors shaking his solid frame, his face almost at the floor. “Hey, Bobby,” Sam said and placed a hand gently on Bobby’s upper back. Bobby jerked away, scrambling backwards until he was several feet down the hall. He pressed his back against the wall, holding himself rigid, his arms straight down at his sides for support and his head thrown back with his eyes closed.

“Bobby?” Sam repeated, following the man down the hall.

“Stay the hell away from me, Sam,” Bobby growled, halting Sam in his tracks. “Just… give me a damn minute. Why don’t’cha go…” Bobby’s voice faltered, ripping Sam’s heart out of his chest. “Go take care of the girls in that room.”

Sam cast a meaningful look at Dean, who nodded once and settled back to wait, a quiet support if Bobby needed it.

~o0O0o~

Bobby’d said nothing during the short journey back from the old farmhouse. Not all that surprising, really, but it left Sam feeling awkward and uncomfortable in his presence. On an instinctive level, it seemed like there ought to be something Sam could say or do to help, even though he knew from his own experience that there was no fixing this, at least, not any time soon.

Dean parked the Impala and barked an order at Sam to wait while he went in to rent a second cabin. Sam looked at his brother imploringly, begging Dean with his eyes not to abandon him, but Dean ignored him and quickly walked away.

Bobby was still behind him, and the car was suddenly stifling, pulsing with the suffocating sense of loss: loss of power, loss of control, loss of self. He threw the door open. It wasn’t enough. He shifted and slid his feet outside of the car so he could face out and take deep, calming breaths of air.

His head cleared a little, and he got out of the car to open the back door so Bobby could get out. Bobby didn’t even acknowledge the act, just stayed in the car staring into space. Sam stood awkwardly next to the open door while Dean took his sweet time getting another cabin rented.

Bobby looked completely lost. _Two men down._ They needed Bobby – needed his strength and intelligence, needed to know there was someone they could turn to when they were out of their depth. Sam’s chest felt tight and anxiety clawed at his throat. He needed to do something. “Bobby, I…” he finally started.

He was cut off almost immediately with a sharp, “Don’t.”

“Right,” Sam replied, and moved over to lean against the hood to wait. There was nothing he could do no matter how hard he wished that wasn’t true.

His whole body felt like a catalog of aches, pains and bone-deep fatigue. He had to smother a soft groan as he sat back on the hard, unforgiving metal, but there was no way he was climbing back into the car with Bobby. He just couldn’t.

When Dean finally showed up with the keys and motioned to the newly rented cabin, Sam practically leapt off the car and hurried inside, letting Dean take care of coaxing Bobby out of the car. Sam wasn’t sure what Dean said to him, but a few minutes later Bobby silently followed Dean into the room and sat on the bed like something old and used. Sam was partially to blame for that. Bobby looked... When Sam had realized that he'd kissed Dean that first time, when he'd realized that the taste of Dean in his mouth had left him feeling warm and needy and good even though he knew it wasn't what Dean had wanted... Bobby looked like that. The thought made him feel sick.

Sam opened his mouth to ask if there was anything Bobby needed, anything he could do to help, but Dean cut him off before he could get the words out. “Okay, we’re done waiting, Bobby. We need some answers, so spill. What the hell happened?”

Sam shot an annoyed look at his brother. Mr. Sensitivity, as usual. The carnage at the old house had been surreal - worse than anything Sam had ever seen on any hunt. He didn’t think the people of the town would ever recover – the ones that were left alive, anyway. He cast a worried glance at Bobby. The man had been there for most of it. Probably even participated in it.

He hoped Bobby wouldn’t be able to explain.

He hoped Bobby didn’t remember anything at all.

Bobby looked up at them, his eyes shiny with tears that didn’t quite manage to fall. He opened his mouth to say something, but then his eyes slid away, his gaze landing on an empty patch of wall in the corner of the room.

“Bobby,” Dean demanded. “Do you remember anything? I mean, the demon said some stuff…”

“Remember almost everything…” Bobby rasped. He looked up at Dean, his eyes flashing angrily. “Bastard made me… well… John was supposed to…” Bobby cut himself off abruptly, his face reddening. “I’m guessing he must have finally decided to contact you, since you’re here. Stubborn bastard.”

Sam wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t. Watching Dean’s stunned face drain of color, though, that fucking hurt. It didn’t last long, defensive anger welling up almost immediately to take its place. Sam felt his own anger raising up to match, but he knew darn well it wasn’t Bobby he was mad at.

“You know, you could have told us he’d been talking to you,” Dean snapped. “You knew we were looking for him. Shit. He’s…” Dean trailed off, his gaze turning to Sam. “But it… it doesn’t matter – we got bigger issues here.” Dean tore his gaze away from Sam’s to look back at Bobby, his expression fierce. “Was the demon telling the truth? Is there a way to fix this?” Dean made a back and forth motion with his hand between the two of them, his voice hopeful… eager even.

Dean was right, of course. This was good news. Dean never should have been put into a situation where he was forced to fuck his own brother. It wasn’t natural; Sam knew that. It was just… Dean’s anticipation hurt way more than it should.

Sam found himself turning away from them guiltily to stare blankly out the window. The idea of making the last 9 or 10 months never happen was… overwhelming… and fraught with more mixed emotion than he ever would have guessed if anyone had asked him yesterday. 

Not that he didn’t want a take-back for himself… of course he did… but… he couldn’t quite imagine his life without Dean as his partner any more. Didn’t really _want_ to imagine it. He needed to, though. For Dean’s sake.

“Yeah, I think there might be a way to make it so that the attack never happened in the first place,” Bobby replied, interrupting Sam’s thoughts. “Gonna have to get to a library though, do some research. The demon was definitely up to something, but it didn’t exactly leave an instruction manual, and I’m not real clear on the what. I can probably find what I need in Denver… I’ll get back to you.”

“What?” Dean replied, outraged. “Bobby, we aren’t splitting up right…”

Bobby cut Dean off mid-sentence. “Damn straight we’re splitting up, boy. I need some time to myself to think. I don’t… I don’t want to be around people right now. Now, get outta here and give me some space.”

Sam turned back to face the wall at the raw pain lancing through Bobby’s voice. The man looked completely weighed down and exhausted, and Sam was suddenly ashamed for getting so caught up in his own issues that he’d managed to forget for even a moment. Dean opened his mouth to argue some more, but Sam grabbed his arm and jerked him backwards. “Come on, Dean. We need to let Bobby get some sleep.” Sam let some of his own exhaustion slip through, let it show in the lines of his body and in his face. “I could do with some myself. Dealing with those people was…”

Dean stared at Sam for a minute, an assessing look on his face, and then nodded curtly. “Alright,” he grudgingly conceded. “But Bobby, we’re going to talk about this in the morning. Got it?”

Bobby closed his eyes and gave a short, quick nod. He managed to keep most of the defeat off of his face, and it wasn’t fair. Nothing was ever fucking fair in their lives. Bobby didn’t deserve this.

Sam’s skin felt like ants were crawling over every inch, and he couldn’t stay in the room anymore. He turned and practically fled, pulling Dean behind him.

They walked in awkward silence back to their own cabin. He really didn’t know what to say to Dean, and Dean seemed lost in his own private little world. It hadn’t really been a conscious decision, but he’d completely given up on the idea of getting rid of the curse months ago. Now that it was a possibility again… it didn’t feel real.

Dean went into the bathroom to brush his teeth as soon as they got back to their room. Sam watched him for a moment and then went to sit blankly on the bed. 

“We gotta meet Dad in five days…” Dean called around the toothbrush in his mouth… at least Sam was pretty sure that’s what he’d said.

“Yeah,” Sam answered back noncommittally.

Dean rinsed his mouth and then turned to lean against the door jam of the bathroom. “Maybe it’ll be all fixed by then.”

Sam felt nauseous, his insides twisting around themselves. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

Dean looked at him oddly. “You okay? I thought you’d be pretty happy by now…”

“I am, Dean. I’m thrilled. I’m just…” Sam stood up and stripped his shirts off. “I’m just tired.” He pulled his pants off and crawled into bed, adding as an afterthought, “And it doesn’t seem real, you know?”

Dean came over and sat on the bed. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He draped himself over the top of the covers and leaned in predatorily. “I’m still too keyed up to sleep. Wanna take the edge off?” Dean closed the distance and pressed their mouths together hungrily, pushing his tongue into Sam’s mouth insistently while he slid his hand down Sam’s chest to cup Sam’s dick through the thick denim.

With a groan, Sam wrapped his arms around Dean and pulled him in close. God, he needed this. He couldn’t imagine giving Dean up. His need to possess and be possessed by Dean didn’t feel imposed, didn’t feel like something the creature had conjured up for Sam. It never had. Certainly his love for Dean had always been there. This was just… more. More complete. Deeper and more consuming, but on some level, his need for Dean had always been there. He hadn’t been unhappy before all this started, but he had definitely felt more alone.

Dean lightly bit Sam’s lower lip, sucking it into his mouth and then scraping his teeth along the skin until it pulled free, and he pulled back enough to look in Sam’s eyes. “You with me?” Dean asked, concern starting to pool in his widening eyes.

Sam let his fingers scrape through Dean’s short hair until his hands were flat against the sides of Dean’s face, and he tilted Dean’s head back, exposing Dean’s neck. The bruise he’d placed there the previous night was a rich, deep purple, staining the pale skin and spreading over the curve of Dean’s jaw. Sam pulled Dean back down and licked over it, tasting Dean’s rich, earthy flavor. He pulled Dean back up, so he could see his mark glistening in the light, inspecting it and deciding to make it darker before pulling Dean back down once more to suck the skin into his mouth hard, deepening his claim. 

Dean groaned and slipped a hand down to cup himself. Sam snatched at it and pulled it back. “Don’t,” he ordered, “Only I get to touch you there.”

“Fuck,” Dean whispered.

Sam used his grip on Dean’s arm to his advantage, flipping them around to pin Dean underneath him. He pulled Dean’s hands up high and gazed down at his brother.

Dean’s eyes were wide, his skin flushed, his breaths coming out hard and fast, and his lips were swollen and full from the rough kisses they’d been exchanging. Dean looked completely vulnerable and debauched. He was beautiful. Sam never wanted to let him go.

He nudged Dean’s face over to the left so he could get a look at the other side of his brother’s neck. The silvery scar from Sam’s teeth when this had all started showed starkly against the surrounding skin. Sam dipped down and fit his teeth back over the mark, biting down. Dean trembled beneath him and a whispered, “Sammy,” fell from his lips. Sam bit down, and Dean turned his head away a little more, exposing more of his neck, granting Sam easy access and silently begging for more.

His mark might be gone soon. The thought simmered in Sam’s gut, painful with the sharp sting of loss. The thought of losing Dean was unbearable. He released Dean’s neck and slid down, relishing in the feel of their bodies sliding together, This was how they were meant to be. He licked a long stripe from the base of Dean’s neck down to Dean’s navel. Pausing there, he licked and bit the skin around Dean’s belly button, dipping his tongue inside to stroke the sensitive skin while he ignored the pulse of Dean’s hips that silently begged him to move lower.

Sam slid up instead until he found the small pebbled nub of Dean’s right nipple. He sucked that in hard, swirling his tongue around the raised flesh and scraping against it with his teeth to draw a long, needy whimper from Dean’s mouth. It wasn’t enough; Sam needed more, needed to join their bodies and taste Dean’s flavor and make Dean his in a way that wouldn’t be simply forgotten.

He pressed his teeth down harder, heard Dean yell, “Fuck,” dimly through his sex haze. Sam scissored his teeth slightly, letting the first hint of copper spread across his tongue. Dean arched against him, “God, Sam, need you so much.”

Sam bit down harder, deepening his mark, making this a mirror of the one he’d left on the other side of Dean’s neck. He only barely managed to catch himself from pressing down so deeply that Dean would need stitches. It still wasn’t enough. He needed to be inside Dean, needed to feel Dean around him, needed their bodies joined together so tightly they couldn’t distinguish any more who was who.

Sam groped at the nightstand and managed to snatch up the tube of lube without dropping it. He squeezed a large amount onto his fingers before reaching down and plunging one into Dean’s body, all the way up to his knuckle. Dean groaned loudly, spreading his legs apart to grant Sam more access. Sam plunged his finger in and out a few times before adding in another.

“Need you, too, Dean,” he moaned. “Need you so much.”

Dean pulled his legs up, “That’s enough, just do it. Do it now.”

Sam didn’t need further urging. He pulled his fingers free and crawled up. He lined up his dick with Dean’s hole and pressed down, entering him in one long, smooth stroke.

Dean’s walls squeezed around him, clutching him tightly, and Sam yelled his pleasure out against Dean’s neck. He didn’t have enough self-control left to let Dean adjust to his presence; he just pulled out again and then slammed home once more. Dean’s yells chorused with his as he thrust in and out, in and out, sheathing himself inside Dean’s body, as deep as he could go. “Tell me you’re mine,” Sam growled, continuing to move within Dean without a beat.

“God, Sam, yeah, always yours.”

Anger pulsed through Sam’s body. _Not always,_ he thought, and pushed in hard and rough, snapping his hips back to do it again and again. Dean yelled out, his breaths so hard and fast that he was in danger of hyperventilating, but he didn’t complain or tell Sam to stop. Sam let his rage build, poured it out with each harsh thrust. He let it reach a crescendo until it spilled out of him; Dean, thank God, was coming too. Wrapped around each other in a tangle of limbs, they pulsed together and clung to each other as they worked through their release, ending up in a sweaty, intertwined heap.

Sam buried his face in the pillow and managed to hide his rage and panic at the thought of losing this until he felt his brother’s breaths even out. Exhaustion pulled at him, and it wasn’t long before he joined Dean in sleep, but the fear of losing Dean followed him into his dreams.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean woke up with Sam tangled around his body. He flexed his muscles experimentally and he had to stifle a groan. Jesus Christ, he was sore.

Early morning light was just starting to filter into the room, and the cheerful sounds of the waking forest were mildly annoying for some reason. Sam was still asleep, his face relaxed… he always looked kind of angelic when he slept. Innocent. Dean felt a swell of emotion he didn’t really want to analyze all that closely and forcefully stomped it down.

They had a deal to make with the devil today, but if it meant Sam wouldn’t have to live with what had happened to him anymore, it would be worth it. That would be worth anything.

He tightened his arms around Sam, closed his eyes and contemplated just staying there until his brother woke up, but… his eyes popped back open. They’d fallen asleep early the night before; he was tired of being in bed. Shifting carefully out of Sam’s grasp, he hobbled into the bathroom and shut the door quietly.

Last night had been awesome. Mind-blowing even. He grinned to himself as he turned the hot water in the shower on to heat up. Moving back to the mirror, he shared a pleased smirk with his reflection before inspecting the bite Sam had pressed into his chest. Sam’d broken skin; it was going to take a while to heal, but at least it didn’t need stitches or anything. He let his fingers play over the damaged skin and let his other hand travel up to cover the matching bite marks on his neck. He should be mad, but mostly, the idea of Sam’s marks on him left him with a pleasant warmth low in his belly, left him content.

Pretty soon, they wouldn’t remember any of this; pretty soon, the marks would be gone. Dean dropped his hands, and his smile vanished as his mind played over the possibilities. His heart clenched painfully; the last thing he wanted was to lose what he’d found with Sam, but… it’s not like there was a choice. If they could undo it, they would. There was no point in dwelling on it. Doing this would bring his brother some peace and delaying would only prolong the pain. Sam’s pain, and his own pain, because… yeah, no dwelling. Anyway… moving on…

He stepped into the shower, let the heat work its way into his muscles and toyed with the idea of waking Sam up to come join him. His dick perked up, a low, steady, aching need. Dean groaned. Shit, he didn’t think his ass could take another pounding.

He finished rinsing off and stepped out of the shower, throwing a towel around his waist before stepping out of the steam-filled room. Sam was out of bed and making coffee when Dean walked back in. His mood inexplicably plummeted, but he plastered a smile on his face anyway and walked into the room to start getting dressed. “Mornin’, sunshine. Why don’t you throw on some clothes and we can head over to Bobby’s. If we help him out, we can probably get this whole thing over with even faster.”

Sam stopped what he was doing. He didn’t even look up, just froze with his hand on the coffee maker. Dean finished pulling on his clothes and watched his brother out of the corner of his eye as he did. When he finally sat on the edge of the bed to put his shoes on, Sam still hadn’t moved.

“Sam?” he prompted.

His brother turned away from the coffee maker without turning it on and started jerkily throwing on his clothes. Dean leaned over and braced his arms on his legs, trying to figure out his brother’s mood. He stared at Sam with a perplexed look on his face, hoping it would get Sam to stop and talk to him, but his brother just ignored him. Finally, Dean slowly started putting his shoes on. By the time he finished putting them on, Sam had his hand on the door.

“Hold up, Sam…” Dean trailed off when Sam threw the door open, cutting him off.

“Going for a walk…” Sam muttered, and stalked out the door, slamming it behind him without looking back.

“The hell? Sam!” Dean yelled, moving quickly to throw open the door, only to watch his brother walk away. Sam didn’t even look back as he disappeared into the trees.

Dean stood there, dumbfounded, for several minutes and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. His brain spun on nothing. Eventually, with a shake of his head, he decided to head over to Bobby’s cabin.

Bobby’s car wasn’t in the spot where they’d left it the night before.

Dean sighed, “What the hell, people?”

The curtains were drawn, so Dean couldn’t look inside the room. He knew Bobby wasn’t there, but he pounded on the door anyway. “Bobby! Open the damn door!” He only waited a few seconds before pulling out his picks to make short work of the lock.

The room was empty; an unmade bed and a letter on the table were the only signs that anyone had been there. Dean scanned the letter and then crumpled it up, throwing it angrily across the room before leaving to take his own goddamned walk.

~o0O0o~

Dean ended up circling around the motel cabins and coming back up to the rear of the place. His muscles were looser, and he much happier for the exertion. He hadn’t seen any sign of Sam on his walk, which was kind of irritating. Where the hell had the pain in the ass gone?

The rear of one of the cabins came into view, its small, enclosed porch facing the edge of the campground. There was a woman draped over the low wooden railing, looking off into the woods. She was dressed in a loose pair of sweats and a small, form-fitting tank top. Her lack of bra left pretty much nothing to the imagination. It looked cold, but he supposed the bottle of Johnny Walker Black in her hands might be keeping her warm. Dean approved.

“Hey there,” she called over to him. Her voice was husky and full of lazy invitation. Her mascara had largely worn away, leaving behind faint black smears around her eyes, her hair was a snarled mess, and the dark lipstick she’d been wearing had smeared beyond the edges of her lips. Somehow, for all of that, she was still pretty, though. “You have a good walk?”

Dean found himself drifting over to her. “I guess. It’s kinda peaceful out there.”

The girl smiled at him. “You’re welcome, if you want,” she said, shaking the bottle a little and holding it out.

“Isn’t it a little early for that?” Although, god, a hit of good whisky sounded like an excellent idea.

Her smile stretched into a smirk. “No, it’s actually really, really late.” She arched an eyebrow at him and held the bottle out a little further.

A few sips wouldn’t hurt… Dean grabbed it and took a long pull, relishing the burn. “I wouldn’t mind some company…” she added.

The thought of going back to his own empty cabin wasn’t actually all that appealing. He put his hands on the railing and hoisted himself up and over it. By silent agreement they both sat down next to each other and leaned against the wall, looking out into the woods. He took another long pull on the bottle and passed it back to her.

“Cheers,” she said, nodded at Dean and then took a long swallow before passing it back. Dean smiled and accepted. A good buzz would definitely help get him through the next few hours. They traded the bottle back and forth for a while, and Dean found his mind dwelling on the fact that he didn’t know where the hell Sam had gone off to. He was starting to get pleasantly lit, but he’d be enjoying it more with his brother right next to him.

“So… what’s your name?” the girl asked, breaking into his thoughts.

“Dean,” he said, and then added to be polite, “You?”

“Roxanne.”

They slipped back into silence again, and Dean was feeling relaxed and hazy when the girl cuddled into his side. “Cold,” she whispered, looking up at him seductively. It seemed like it had been forever since he’d had a random hook-up, and the girl was definitely offering. She took another swallow from the almost empty bottle, and, okay, maybe he’d drunk a little more than he intended.

Sam was going to kill him.

She looked up at him. Her lips were wet and glistening with drops of whiskey in the morning light. He dropped his head down to lick across them, sucking the liquid off her lips. She moaned wantonly. Her voice was high pitched and soft, and she trailed a small hand up his thigh, coming to rest on his dick.

This was all wrong. What the fuck was he doing?

She pressed her hand firmly against his soft flesh, and, keeping contact, swung a leg over his, straddling him before pulling off her tank top and tossing it to the side. Snugging their bodies together, she grabbed his head, pulled him forward and fit her mouth over his in an open, sloppy kiss.

He tensed in her arms, expecting Sam to come charging in to tear her off of him… and was vaguely disappointed when that didn’t happen. He needed his brother in ways that were anything but right, but he wasn’t sure he cared anymore… and he was gonna have to give it all up for his brother’s sake. At that thought, all the rage and loss that he’d been just barely holding back since the day before lanced through him in a flash and left a jarring, aching hole behind. He didn’t need the curse making Sam go all cave-man on him to keep him in line anymore. He didn’t want meaningless, random hook-ups. He wanted Sam.

Dean pushed her back, peeling her body away from his. “Look,” he started, “I’m sorry…”

The girl pushed back into him and bit his lower lip painfully; then, she slammed him back with incredible strength. He struggled to sit up and shove her off, but her hand on his chest kept him pinned effortlessly. “What…” he muttered, his brain sluggishly trying to process what had just happened.

She pulled back and started to laugh loudly. “Thanks for the ride, Dean-o. Sorry you didn’t want to play.” She opened her mouth widely. Black smoke came pouring out, and her hand convulsed on his dick, sending searing pain spreading through his groin.

Dean hadn’t completely recovered from the fiery agony in his crotch, and between that and the alcohol, he certainly didn’t have anything even resembling a coherent response when the back door slid open to reveal a bare-chested man in nothing but boxers. He stood there, glaring down at them with fury in his eyes. The girl stared back at Dean and, with a look of horror and confusion etching her features, scrambled back, tears pooling in her eyes. “Jeff? I…”

“Fuck you, Roxie,” the man yelled, turning and heading back into the room.

“Jeff!” Roxanne screeched before scrambling off of Dean and throwing herself through the door after her… whatever.

Dean managed to pull himself together enough to throw himself over the rail before they came back out and then took off running. The only thought making it through his whiskey-addled brain was that he didn’t want to have to explain what had just happened to a couple of furious strangers. Goddamned fucking demons. What the fuck were they playing at?

The demons hadn’t really left.

Sam was out there somewhere on his own.

Fuck.

Dean veered back toward the campground, his heart in his chest, praying that Sam had already gone back to the cabin. Because of the uneven terrain, it took him twice as long to run back as it would have on good old pavement. He was ready to lodge a fucking complaint that the whole world wasn’t paved by the time he ran up the three steps into their room.

The door was unlocked, and he burst in – and came to a startled halt in front of a very surprised looking Sam.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, alarmed.

“I…” the room was spinning, and okay, maybe drinking enough whiskey to get wasted and then going for a panicked run wasn’t the brightest idea he’d ever had… especially on an empty stomach…

Sam’s solid grip on his arms guided him over to the bed before he could get his thoughts back in order. He dropped backwards on the bed, wrapped his arms around himself and breathed heavily, desperately trying to get his stomach to settle.

“What the hell, Dean? You smell like a distillery…”

“Give me a fucking minute? Feelin’ a little sick here…”

“You need to get to the toilet?”

“No!” Dean moaned, “Damn it.”

Sam sighed and lay down behind Dean, pulling Dean up against his chest. The comforting warmth felt good, and Dean relaxed back into it. After a minute his stomach started to settle slightly, and he huffed out a sigh of relief. “I need to eat something…”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s probably true,” Sam said dryly. He shifted away and came back a moment later. “Here.”

A foil wrapped bar was placed into Dean’s hand, and he wasn’t able to keep back a groan of disgust when he opened his eyes to see, not a Snickers, but one of Sam’s god-awful protein bars.

Sam didn’t wait for his protest but growled, “Eat it anyway.”

Dean didn’t think he was up to sitting yet, and, anyway, Sam was putting his Gigantor arms back around him, so he remained lying down. He ripped open the package and forced half the bar into his mouth. It tasted abysmal, but the faster he got it in his mouth, the faster it would be gone.

“Jesus, Dean. You’re so disgusting.”

“This cardboard is disgusting,” Dean replied around the mouthful. “How can you eat this shit?”

“It’s good for you. Although it won’t be if you choke yourself on it,” Sam teased.

Dean managed to swallow the lump of paste in his mouth and crammed the other half in, continuing to chew as his stomach tried to decide what it was going to do with the sudden infusion of protein.

“So, you wanna tell me why you burst in here like you were being chased by a wendigo?”

Fuck. The alcohol was seriously throwing him off his game. He swallowed the rest of the bar and muttered, “Ran into another demon on the edge of the motel grounds.”

“What?” Sam said, alarmed.

“Yeah, possessing some hot chick.” Sam’s grip tightened slightly and Dean could feel his face heating up. When he’d agreed to share the whiskey, he hadn’t really been planning on confessing to Sam what an idiot he was being. “She was drinking and offered to share. Got me kinda plastered, and then she made a pass at me…”

Dean grabbed Sam’s arms when he moved to pull away and added quickly, “When I _didn’t want to play_ , the demon took off. What the fuck was that even about?”

Ignoring Dean’s question, Sam asked incredulously, “So some random chick in the woods offers you booze, and you decide to just take her up on it?”

“Oh, come on. It wasn’t like that. It was…” Yeah, okay, shit, it kind of was like that. He didn’t really have a good defense for this one.

Sam sat up; Dean let him go this time and tentatively followed him up. The room was still spinning a bit, but at least his stomach was feeling a little better.

Hunched over, his elbows on his knees and his hands wrapped around the back of his head, Sam muttered, “The demons are totally fucking with us… with me. I just… I don’t understand why I’m such a target…” He moved his hands roughly through his hair then let them drop down to his lap. Sam stayed slumped forward, and Dean’s gut roiled, low and painful, with Sam’s defeat.

Dean moved over behind Sam, rested his hands on Sam’s back and pressed his lips to the back of Sam’s neck. He slid his hands around to Sam’s chest and pulled his brother close. “ _We_ , Sam. How many times I gotta tell you that? We’re in this together.”

Sam tensed under Dean’s hands, a short bark of laughter bursting from his lips before he sank down even deeper into himself. “I know, you…” Sam trailed off, taking in a deep, shuddering breath and holding it briefly before huffing out, “I don’t want to go back to being just brothers, Dean.” It came out in a rush, like he was confessing something shameful.

“I don’t either,” Dean immediately replied.

“Right.” Sam snorted derisively.

“What? I thought we were past this. Of course I don’t want to.”

Sam pulled himself out of Dean’s arms and stood up, moving over to the table to turn around and lean against it. “Sure,” he burst out angrily. “That’s why you were so fucking happy last night and this morning – because you _don’t_ want to jump at the chance to get out of your incestuous relationship with your brother. You never wanted this, Dean. Of course you’re going to jump at the chance to take it all back.”

 _That’s_ what this morning had been about? “You know, for a smart guy, sometimes you’re a real idiot.” Dean managed to keep his voice calm and forceful, instead of rising to meet Sam’s anger. Sam huffed out a breath and looked away, but that didn’t stop Dean from continuing. His brother needed to hear this. “I didn’t know I wanted this, but I’m not happy I’m going to go back to not knowing. My life was… a hell of a lot emptier back then. But yeah, I’d sacrifice just about anything if it meant you didn’t have to go through that attack. Anything.”

“I… know.” Sam’s shoulders slumped, and he moved to the window, pulling the curtains aside slightly so he could look out. “I feel stupid for even thinking about not doing it, you know? But… God, I don’t want to lose you.”

Dean stood up and pulled his brother into his arms. “You aren’t going to lose me, Sam. We don’t even know at this point if it’s going to work... and we’re talking about making deals with demons here; the cost might wind up being way too high. Why don’t we stop borrowing trouble and wait and hear what Bobby has to say, huh?”

Sam nodded quietly against Dean’s neck. “We should probably head over there. Or did you already talk to him this morning?”

“Bobby took off. Car’s gone. He left a run-away note that said to stay here and wait for him. I _want_ to go over to Denver and track Bobby the fuck down, but Dad’s supposed to be at Bobby’s place in five days. We should probably go there to wait for him, and, eventually, maybe even bring him in on this.” Dean grimaced. “I don’t want to, but, deals with demons… that’s big.” Dean pulled back and shrugged. “I’m not sure what we should do.” His stomach was still being pissy, so he moved to the bed and sat down again.

“I’m not sure how much Bobby remembers, but it was obviously pretty bad, what the demon made him do. I think he needs some space.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean snapped, “we need some answers.”

“I think we should stay here and wait for him, like he asked. We need to keep an eye on the town in case the demons come back, anyway.”

Dean had to bite back his anger. Don’t shoot the messenger. Sam wasn’t the one who’d run off and anyway, Sam had a point… although, at the moment, Dean wasn’t sure what they were going to do if the demons did come back. “There’re too many demons for us to deal with on our own. Bobby’d be the person to ask for help with that… Oh, wait…”

Sam ignored his sarcasm, “I still think we should wait here. Dad’s made us wait for months. He can wait a few days for us. Dad’s good, but when it comes to demons, Bobby’s better. And, like you said, maybe there’s a way for everything to be fixed. I don’t want to tell him about us unless we have no choice.”

“Fine,” Dean answered, unwilling to voice out loud how relieved he was at that statement. His stomach churned grumpily. “If I agree to that, will you go find us some real food?” Dean asked, pulling his ass more firmly into the middle of the bed and laying down.

Sam came to the bed and leaned over, laying a lazy kiss over Dean’s mouth. He slid his hand under Dean’s shirt and circled slowly down until the tips of his fingers were dipping below Dean’s pants to graze Dean’s dick, sending little shivers of pleasure tickling across sensitive skin. Dean opened obediently when Sam deepened the kiss, and Sam’s hand sank lower, dragging heat all the way down his length. His dick started to fill half-heartedly, even as his stomach did another flip. Dean turned his head, breaking the kiss. “Damn it, Sam,” Dean groaned. “I’m too drunk for this.”

“I know,” Sam replied huskily. “See what you miss out on when you accept drinks from strange women?”

“Fuck you.”

Sam pulled back and smiled mischievously, “You just said you were too drunk for that.” Dean scowled at him, and Sam’s face softened affectionately, “Get some sleep, and I’ll bring something back for you.”

“Make it quick, bitch.”

“Jerk,” Sam drawled, and then walked out the door.

~o0O0o~

Sam had been sitting in front of the computer for hours, and there were only three channels reliably coming in on the damned TV set. Between the Inspiration Ministry televangelist crap, the static filled rerun of George Lopez, and the infomercial for spray-on hair (which, okay, that one had been funny at first, but had gotten really old really quick), Dean was ready to throw the stupid TV through the window. The cheap-assed places they usually stayed at almost always at least had working cable. Dean would have moved to a different motel, if there’d been a choice. Of course, that was probably why people here hadn’t bothered to fix the cable.

Dean clicked the TV off and lay down, trying to let the erratic start and stop clicking of the keyboard lull him to sleep, but ten minutes later he was still wide awake. During yet another pause, Dean sighed loudly, hoping Sam would get the hint. He had just enough time to get hopeful that Sam had finally stopped… and the keys were clicking again. He sat up. “Hey, Sammy?”

“Yeah,” Sam answered absently.

“Why don’t you close the computer and come to bed?” Dean asked. His voice wasn’t the least bit whiney… he didn’t think.

“Just a few more minutes. I think I might have found something,” Sam muttered so softly Dean almost couldn’t hear him over the sound of typing.

“Dude, you’ve been at it for hours. Take a break. It’s really late…”

Sam, irritatingly, didn’t respond. “I’ll make it worth your while,” Dean kept his voice low and seductive. Sam only snorted. Okay, that was a low blow. Dean dragged himself out of bed and trudged slowly over to the table to get a look at what Sam was obsessing over. The text that had Sam scowling at the screen was all in Latin. It was way too fucking late to try to translate Latin.

“Fuck!” Sam swore suddenly, making Dean flinch a little. Sam slammed the lid of the laptop closed in frustration and furiously pushed it away. Fortunately, the rubber feet kept it from flying off the edge of the table.

“Someone’s getting cranky,” Dean teased gently, “I think it’s past his bedtime.” He laid his hand on Sam’s neck, thinking only to offer comfort. Sam jumped about a foot and yanked himself away, toppling the chair between them and landing on his ass.

“Jesus, Sam…” Dean swore, holding himself still instead of obeying the clamor of every cell in his body to leap forward and help.

Laughing shakily, Sam looked up. His eyes were wide and as false as his laughter.

“Shit, I’m... that was stupid. I don’t know why I…” Sam paused and looked away to shake his head and blow out a long stream of air. He took a deep breath before looking back up.

His eyes masked the fear Dean knew was there; kid had been on edge since Bobby.

“Help me up?” Sam held out his hand, and Dean took it firmly, hauling Sam to his feet. “That was…” Sam shook his head again. “Sorry. You’re right, we should go to bed.” Sam stepped around Dean into the middle of the room

Dean followed behind him, rubbing his hands over his brother’s shoulders and trying to soothe. Sam paused, head dropping forward. Dean massaged his fingers firmly into Sam’s tense muscles, and he was a little relieved when Sam started to relax under his hands.

Sam’s low sigh transformed into a quiet groan. Dean leaned in to press his lips against Sam’s back, then turned to rest his head on Sam’s shoulder. “You’ll be okay. Yesterday wasn’t that long ago. The whole thing with Bobby just left you jumpy. Hell, it left me jumpy, too.”

Sam sighed, “Yeah.” He nodded and pulled away to head to the other side of the bed. At that moment of separation, the lights flickered, once… twice… and suddenly the room was bathed in darkness.

“Shit,” Sam hissed. His breath, audible in the smothering silence of the dark, hitched in palpable fear before resuming, fast and shallow.

Dean immediately moved to where he last saw Sam and nudged into him lightly. Pulling Sam against his chest, he wrapped his arms around to hold his brother close. “I’m sure it’s just temporary. I’m sure they’ll come back on in a minute.” Dean whispered, “Just relax. I’ve got you. Not going anywhere.”

Sam nodded once, short and curt, but while the quick inhalations under his hands deepened, they sped up even more.

They stood together in the dark, and Dean said a quick prayer to the God that never listened that the power got fixed fucking soon. He snorted to himself over that bit of stupidity and wasn’t disappointed when, naturally, it didn’t work.

Sam started to shake only moments before dropping heavily to his hands and knees, Sam’s weight and Dean’s reluctance to let go dragging Dean down with him. Dean’s stomach clenched at Sam’s shaky call of, “Dean?” Sam’s voice was tight with fear, and his tremors increased violently. “Dean?” Sam’s need slammed into Dean with as much force as a solid fucking hit to the head, and the panicked tone scraped Dean raw like nails down a chalkboard. Damn it.

They needed some fucking light.

The goddamn flashlights were in the bag next to the bathroom, on the other side of the fucking bed.

Sam’s breathing changed again, rapidly becoming so fast and shallow that he was in definite danger of hyperventilating. “Dean?” It sounded like he was choking around the word. “Can’t… can’t… breathe…”

Dean reached toward the plaintive sound and unerringly found Sam’s cheek. He stroked his thumb once over the stubbled skin. His brother jerked back under his touch, a small, strangled sob escaping into the air.

Shit, he needed that flashlight, even if it meant abandoning Sam to get it. He stood up, talking as he moved and hoping that some of his words might make it through Sam’s hazed mind. “I’m right here, Sammy. Not going anywhere, just getting the flashlights…” He babbled soothingly as he tried not to trip over anything that might have been forgotten on the floor. Panic clouded his thoughts, and he didn’t really remember the journey or his frantic searching. By the time he got his thoughts tamed, he was next to his ripped open bag, a flashlight in hand.

He flipped the switch…

and light flooded back into the room. The power was back. _Son of a bitch!_

Sam was huddled in on himself on the floor in a near fetal position, and his hands were around his throat as he fought for air, coughing and choking around something that wasn’t even there. He was bathed in sweat, tremors still rocking through his body.

Dean threw the flashlight down and dashed across the floor to land next to his brother. “Sam?” His own voice sounded almost as thrashed as his brother’s.

He reached out a shaky hand, afraid, for a moment, to touch. Sam whimpered, and suddenly Dean’s hand was smoothing over Sam’s shoulder, frantically offering comfort.

“Dean?” Sam’s eyes slit open slightly, and his hands slowly lowered a little from his throat. “Dean,” he repeated, lost and helpless.

That was all the encouragement Dean needed to pull his brother into his arms.

“Fuck. Just … Fuck,” Sam’s voice was full of anger and wracked with dry sobs. Sam still shook, but he burrowed into Dean’s arms, seeking comfort that Dean was more than happy to provide.

“The demons are fucking laughing at us…” Sam whispered.

Dean didn’t know what to say to that and replied simply, “I’ve got you, Sammy. Not gonna let anything happen to you.”

“God, I’m…” Sam suddenly jerked out of Dean’s arms and faced away from Dean on his hands and knees, a hand flying up to cover his face. “He won’t leave me alone,” Sam sobbed. His voice rang with desperation and anguish, and it was fucking ripping Dean’s heart out of his chest. “I can’t do this anymore, Dean. I’m not fucking strong enough.”

Dean moved forward and pressed a kiss against Sam’s back. He gripped Sam’s shoulders and pulled back so his arms could wrap around Sam’s stomach. “I know, I know. I’m gonna fix this for you, Sam. I promise. I’m gonna fix it.”

“Are you sure?” Sam rumbled, “I mean… we’re talking demons here. This is so fucked up.”

“Whatever you need, Sammy. Whatever it takes,” Dean murmured.

“I don’t… I can’t… Fuck.” Sam nodded, his body slumping forward in defeat. “Okay. If Bobby finds a way… okay.”

“Then okay.” Dean squeezed Sam tightly. He wanted to lose it himself, wanted to be able to just fall apart, but Sam needed him to do this, needed him to be strong.

Whatever it took.


	7. Chapter 7

A loud pounding on the door dragged Sam from his drunken sleep with a moan.

Dean growled, “Who’s it?” into the pillow; he was laying face down with Sam’s full weight on top of him.

Sam’s head throbbed painfully at all the noise. He rolled over and pressed his hands to his eyes. “’S pro’ly Bobby,” he slurred out.

Getting his brother good and drunk had seemed like such a good idea the night before; Dean had been practically climbing the walls in the face of Sam’s insistence that they stay and wait for Bobby instead of driving back to get John first. Sam dropped his hands down, grateful that the noise had gone away.

Not that Dean had complained. He’d gone into full-on my-brother-is-fragile mode since Bobby’d left. Sam could probably have asked for the Impala right then and gotten it. Which… As desperate as Sam was to forget that the attack had ever happened, he was almost more eager to take away Dean’s misplaced guilt.

It had been a long four days.

The pounding sounded again, jerking Sam from his drowsy, wandering thoughts and setting off another round of throbbing pain. Damn, he should probably get up and let the man in…

Dean groaned loudly. “Dude, we reek. The room totally stinks of sex.”

“He already knows, Dean.” Sam started to sit up, but his stomach did a back-flip, causing him to roll over and curl into himself. “Go answer the door,” he gasped out. Okay, maybe he wasn’t above taking advantage of Dean’s guilt a little bit.

“Oh, fuck,” Dean grumbled, but he stood up anyway, grabbed his discarded jeans and pulled them on before throwing the door wide open. It was a good thing it really was Bobby standing at the door.

Sam’s breath caught in his throat at the sight his brother made – shirtless and framed in early morning sunlight, Dean was beautiful. Fuck, he didn’t want to lose his brother… but it was the only way to get rid of the goddamn nightmares and the flashbacks and the omnipresent fear that he couldn’t seem to shake. He still hadn’t completely decided if it was really worth it to replace one pain with another. Not that he’d remember, of course… and Dean had looked at him like he was crazy whenever he’d tried to hint at his feelings over the last few days, so he’d ultimately decided to just let it drop.

He didn’t really understand why the question persisted in his own head, either. 

Dean bowed Bobby into the room with a flourish. The sarcasm of the gesture was not lost on anyone. The man looked worse than Sam felt – completely exhausted with dark circles under his eyes and wearing what had to be the same rumpled clothes he’d been in when he left.

Bobby came in wearily. He barely acknowledged anyone or anything in the room before dropping into one of the chairs parked at the take-out debris-covered table. Taking off his cap, he ran his fingers tiredly through his hair before tugging it back on.

A sudden burst of nerves cleared the haze from Sam’s head, if not the ache, and he sat up slowly, keeping the blankets over his lap as he swung his feet over the side. “What did you find? Any luck?”

“Yeah, I had some luck,” Bobby replied ominously.

He didn’t say anything else, and the room settled briefly into a tense silence before Dean suddenly burst out, “What? What the hell did you find?”

Bobby shot Dean an impatient look and cleared his throat uncomfortably before shifting his gaze to Sam. “Well, uh, the creature that attacked you, Sam… it had a lair not too far from here. That’s where we’re gonna have to go to do the reversal ritual…”

“Ritual?” Sam interrupted.

“Yeah. It’s dark magic, Sam – fueled by death and suffering. Near as I can figure, the demon in me was in the process of performing it when it took off. It was almost done. All you have to do is complete it.”

“Where is it?” Sam asked, his nerves suddenly morphing into intense anger that was so strong he was shaking with it. He couldn’t stay here anymore.

“Where’s what?” Bobby asked.

“The creature’s lair. Where is it? I want to see it.” Sam stood up and started throwing on clothes, not caring when Bobby looked away, uncomfortable at his state of undress.

“Sammy,” Dean questioned warily, his voice full of caution.

At the same time, Bobby asked, “Don’t you want to plan this out a little more before charging in there?”

“No,” Sam growled. “We need anything to complete this little ritual?”

“Just yerselves,” Bobby answered.

“Then let’s go,” Sam said, slamming his feet into his shoes.

Bobby looked over at Dean inquiringly, and his brother nodded slightly... Apparently, Bobby wasn’t going to do this without Dean’s permission – like Sam was a fucking kid or incompetent or something.

Dean was still getting dressed, but Sam didn’t want to be cooped up in the same room with either one of them at the moment. He slammed out the door and paced on the porch impatiently for a few minutes. What the fuck was keeping them?

His anger and disquiet continued to climb slowly, but before he completely lost his mind, the door opened softly, and Dean stepped out, holding Sam’s jacket. “You’re gonna need this. Bobby says it’s a pretty good hike.” Dean was looking at Sam with pity. Dean almost never did that.

Sam’s fists clenched at his side, and he had to resist the urge to throw a punch. He almost didn’t succeed. “Thanks,” Sam bit out, turning away to slip the jacket on before moving down the steps.

Dean stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, “Hey.” He pulled Sam gently back around to face him and placed his hands on either side of Sam’s head, pulling Sam in to brush their lips together. “You’re gonna be okay.”

Sudden longing filled him, washing over him and firmly pushing back the anger. Sam moved in and scraped his teeth lightly across Dean’s mouth, opening Dean up with his tongue to hungrily suck Dean’s into his mouth. Sam pushed until Dean’s back was flush against the wall. He pressed in hard, needing to merge himself with his brother, filled with a sudden intense need to fuse their souls.

A sob ripped from Sam’s throat, which… Fuck, he wasn’t even sure where that came from. He wasn’t… Nothing was supposed to be… He couldn’t get his thoughts in order, and they tumbled uselessly around each other. The rage, which had only been temporarily overshadowed by his desire, poured back in, leaving him feeling helpless and impotent. He tore himself away from Dean angrily. “Let’s go,” he growled.

Dean looked slightly lost, but he didn’t argue, just rapped twice on the door. Bobby immediately stepped out, moving silently out in front of Sam to take the lead.

~o0O0o~

Sam’s skin prickled with the gradually building sense of wrongness that had been filling the air for the last ten minutes. If he hadn’t been walking with a purpose, he’d have turned back by now.

The stink, when it hit, was even worse, bad enough to make him stumble.

Bobby turned back to look at them. “We’re almost there,” he grumbled. The man looked haggard and worn. This journey was taking more out of him than he had to spare.

Sam nodded in response, and Bobby resumed the lead. Sam could feel his brother’s eyes boring a hole in the back of his head, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at Dean, or to hang back, or to do anything to reassure Dean at all. He just… he needed to see what the creature had left behind. That thought rode him, pushing him forward despite the pulse of dread in his chest.

Bobby stopped abruptly and swung his pack down to pull out a couple of flashlights and toss them to Sam and Dean. “You’re gonna need those. You were in such an all-fired hurry to leave, I doubt you thought to bring your own.”

Sam flushed and fumbled to turn the flashlight on in an attempt to hide his weakness. “Are we…”

Bobby cut him off, “It’s right through those hanging branches.”

They were standing next to a steep hill face that was covered in vines and long, hanging, grass-like plants. Sam gave Bobby a skeptical look and then pushed into them where Bobby had indicated. His hand passed through into an empty space. He glanced back at Bobby, slightly startled, and then braced himself and pushed through.

The smell was much stronger here, rancid and nauseating, but Sam was more distracted by the distinct lack of light. He felt his breath coming out fast and hard as he jerked the flashlight up to illuminate the path. 

Dean stepped up beside Sam and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam’s breathing calmed a little at the touch, and he made himself start walking forward. About ten feet in, the cave opened up into a large cavern, and Sam could hear the echoes of flowing water through the space.

He let his light play over the ground and picked out the dark lines of a large rune traced over the floor beginning a couple of feet in. Sam stepped toward it and crouched down, running his finger along one of the lines. Some of the paint rubbed off on his finger and he brought it up to his nose. He couldn’t make out anything over the powerful smell of decay but… it had the consistency of blood.

“I did that,” Bobby rasped out, making Sam jump.

“You did what?” Dean asked before Sam could form a response.

“Painted the rune. With the blood of a girl I sacrificed.”

Sam looked up at Bobby. The man looked like he’d aged fifty years in the last two minutes – he looked… old. Sam had never really thought of him that way before. “You didn’t do this, Bobby,” Sam said softly. “You were possessed.”

Bobby looked at Sam sharply, “You think I don’t know that, boy?”

“Then quit it with the I-statements already,” Dean snapped back.

Sam set the flashlight on the ground next to him and wiped his suddenly sweating hands against his jeans. Bobby’d been possessed. It’s not like the man had _wanted_ to do the things he’d done. The demon had only manipulated his body, not his mind, which… Dean was giving Sam a strange look that was difficult to interpret in the darkness of the cave. Sam wiped his now shaking hands against his jeans once more and grabbed the flashlight to try to hide the trembling. Dean was still watching him. Guilt left an acidic taste in the back of his throat; Sam turned away and stood up.

There was something at the back of the cave. He played his flashlight over it, but it was too far away. He picked his foot up to take a step forward and nausea twisted his guts, tangling them in knots. Whatever the blood symbol was, it didn’t want to be crossed, and Sam didn’t want to be anywhere near it. But, he needed… the back of the cave… he needed to…

Hesitantly, he took a careful step forward, and then another, making sure to skirt the edge of the blood line, being careful not to touch the well of rankness it formed. The closer he got to the back left corner of the cave, the faster he moved, relief leaving him weak when the symbol curved back into the middle of the cave and left his path clear.

He could see a pit in the floor as he got close to the corner of the cave. It was filled with something sharply jagged and grey. Despair clawed at his chest as he approached, and he almost turned around, but he’d lost control of his body, even if only to some internal compulsion. He closed the distance without faltering.

 _Bones_ , his mind supplied as he crouched down to pick up a piece with a trembling hand. Human bones. He threw it back down in disgust. The demon that had possessed Bobby hadn’t touched this place. This lair belonged solely to the creature that had taken Sam. The demon had left it all there, flawlessly incorrupt, like a sacred shrine. Disturbed, an anxious tingling sensation crawled up his back and he shook his head, willing the thought away; he didn’t know where the thought had come from, but it wasn’t his.

Countless bodies must have been thrown in to fill the pit so completely. He really didn’t want to know how deep it was. A short, dry sob forced its way past his lips, and he paused to close his eyes and take a deep breath.

That was a mistake.

The rank air choked him, and his eyes flew back open as he coughed it out, but at least the discomfort made it a little easier to think.

The pit had formed the creature’s bed. Sam was suddenly sure of this, and he scrambled backwards, urgently putting a few paces between the pit and himself.

As he moved, the flashlight hit his leg and angled toward the wall. There were chains there, cuffs of all shapes and sizes drilled into solid stone. Some were simply manacles that jutted from the wall, and some dangled all the way down to the floor on long chains. Attached to them… were bodies. Most clearly died years ago, nothing but bone held together with dried sinew, but others were more recent, not much more than a year… not much before _him_. The smell of rot, the fiery edge of fear and rage, the crushing weight of despair all warred within him for dominance, and Sam sat on the floor, immobilized with the weight of it all.

“Sam, you okay?” Dean asked, concern filling his voice as he stepped close to Sam.

Dean dropped his hand down on Sam’s shoulder, just as he had done a thousand times since the curse had left Sam needing Dean like he did. This time, though, pain accompanied the touch and lanced through his body like the strike of a whip, the consequences of touch changed suddenly back to what they had been at the hand of the creature who’d held him.

The screams of the creature’s victims clanged through his head, and Sam clasped his hands over his ears, though it did nothing to diminish the growing cacophony. “No!” Sam shouted, curling into himself in a futile attempt to protect himself from the agonizing dissonance of sound. The voices were pleading with Sam, hundreds… thousands of souls begging anyone to come and help them, come and rescue them, but there was no hope, and Sam crumbled, joining his voice to the chorus, utterly consumed by it…

~o0O0o~

He lost track of how long he floated in that sea of despair and pain. He called out for Dean, over and over again, but his brother never came, and the pain never stopped. He could feel nothing beyond the abuse of his tormentor, the fiery line of sharp instruments against his skin and the suffocating fear that he would never be able to see again. He could only exist in the terror that this mysterious blindness was permanent and drown in the rage and humiliation and horror of every time the creature made him beg to be penetrated, to be raped. Worse, this time, it was all magnified unbearably by the overwhelming weight of misery and anguish that crashed over him in waves from all of the creature’s slaves, and the soul-shattering knowledge that it didn’t just kill its victims; when it was done with them, done taking everything until almost nothing was left, when they prayed for the promise of oblivion, it pulled their souls into hell.

Time no longer existed; his sole reality was misery and pain without beginning, without end, without possibility of escape. He was lost. _Dean_ …

A small, cold splash of water on his cheek penetrated the pain-filled haze of existence for a brief, precious moment… but, it wasn’t enough to withstand the crushing press of misery, and it slipped away, almost before he knew it was there. Fury filled him, and though he didn’t remember a time without agony, fury was something he knew, something he welcomed and needed. He strained under the creature’s harsh control, seeking out something, anything to cling to, slammed his rage against the creature’s impossible prison.

After an eternity, he felt the smallest hint of warmth, the barest touch of safety and home. Frantically, he chased after it, fiercely determined not to lose again the thin thread of hope. The soft brush of lips over his own anchored him and brought him even closer to _now_. The harsh feeling of hands scouring over his body and the accompanying promise of defilement threatened to pull him back under, but he yelled out his defiance, and a fierce, searing, “No!” filled the darkness.

The soft pleading tones of his brother’s voice, almost loud enough to let Sam make out the words, filtered into the vortex of pain. He sobbed in wonder, and let it surge through him, an avatar of hope to push back the desolation that had claimed his entire being. Finally, _finally_ , he found a soft spark of light and life, found the essence of his brother who was more precious to him than his own life. He followed it up, used it to claw himself out, let the purity of his brother’s soul wash over the desecrated stain that was his own…

~o0O0o~

“Dean?” he whispered. His throat was shredded, completely wrecked; pain slid through the tissue like shards of glass as he spoke the word and it sent him spiraling into wracking coughs that left him gasping for even the smallest breath of air.

Cradled close in Dean’s arms, Sam clutched at him, pulling enough strength from his brother’s embrace to open his eyes.

“Oh, god…” Dean gasped, folding his body around Sam like Sam might slip from his grasp if he didn’t hold on tight. His brother was shaking, his grip painful, but Sam welcomed the embrace; it was the only thing keeping him sane. “Fuck… you scared the ever lovin’ crap out of me, Sammy.”

“What…” The word brought on more painful coughing. Dean held him through the worst of it before bringing a bottle of water to Sam’s lips. Sam drank greedily, the cool liquid soothing against his throat. He drank until he had to push the bottle away in order to take a gasping breath. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What happened?”

“Beats the fuck out of me,” Dean answered. “You just started screaming in there and wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t respond. It was like you weren’t here anymore.” Sam looked around, and it finally occurred to him that they weren’t in the cave anymore.

“You’ve been screamin’ your fool head off for over an hour, Sam.” Bobby added helpfully.

“I don’t…” Sam paused to wait for the coughing to start again, but, though his throat felt like it was on fire and his voice was barely louder than a whisper, he didn’t choke again. “It was like… I was all of his victims at once… maybe… I think it was some sort of psychic connection.” Sam flushed, embarrassed, for some reason, by what he’d just admitted.

“I don’t think we should go back in there,” Bobby groused. “I don’t like it – you’re doing exactly what the demons wanted.”

Dean looked up, a determined look on his face. “We have to. Sam’ll just have to… steel himself against it… or something. Can you do that, Sam?”

Sam struggled out of Dean’s grasp, suddenly not wanting to be restrained, and sat up. “I can try.”

“Damn stubborn fools,” Bobby muttered, but he followed them when they walked unsteadily back in, Dean pressed up close against Sam’s back.

Sam could hear the whispers skirting the edges of his mind, could feel them pulling him towards the vortex of their pain. He couldn’t go there again.

Stopping abruptly, Sam turned to face Dean who was following so close he couldn’t stop in time. Sam let Dean walk right into him.

Taking advantage of Dean’s surprise, he pressed his lips against his brother’s, asking silently for admittance with little licks and small bites. He could tell he’d thrown his brother a bit, but Dean went along, opening his mouth to twine his tongue with Sam’s. Sam could feel Dean harden against his leg, and he plunged his hand down the front of Dean’s pants, taking the solid length in a firm grip. It felt right – soft, slightly damp skin that fit perfectly in his hand.

He moved on instinct, firming the connection between them as he deepened the kiss, attempting to lose himself in the feeling that was _Dean_. His focus narrowed until all he knew was the two of them, wrapped around each other in a bubble of their own existence.

The power pulsed in him, deep down at first but building higher and higher until it flowed up and out. Too much for Sam to contain alone, the power poured into Dean until they were both filled. Dean gasped against him, a low whimper falling from his lips, and his dick pulsed in Sam’s hand once, twice… and Dean was coming against Sam, moaning low and deep and needy. Dean sagged in Sam’s arms as the orgasm passed through him, leaving him boneless and gasping for breath. “Holy fuck, Sam,” he gasped out. “What the fuck was that?” Dean’s legs gave out, and Sam followed his brother down to the floor.

Sam was almost shaking with his energy high, but concern for his brother was leaving him cold. What the hell had he done? “Shit, Dean. Are you okay?” His throat didn’t hurt anymore, he noticed absently.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘m fine,” Dean mumbled, sounding a little dazed. “Best orgasm of my fucking life, so… yeah, I’m good…” Dean’s eyes suddenly grew large as he looked past Sam’s shoulder. “Shit, Bobby, I’m so sorry!”

Sam spared a glance backwards to find Bobby standing with his back to them, his head shaking slightly back and forth in the dim light. “You boys done?” he rasped out.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Um, so… what do we have to do to reset everything?” Dean stammered nervously. Sam suppressed his smirk at Dean’s embarrassment, secretly glad he wasn’t the one who’d had to speak.

Bobby turned back toward them, and Sam could see, even in the dim light, that he was beet-red. It was funnier than it probably should have been; Sam had to work hard to keep the grin off his face. “Well, most of the ritual was already completed. You boys just need to… finish it...”

Bobby’s gaze shifted to the side and caught on the lines of red that decorated the floor. He looked a little fish-like as he opened and closed his mouth a few times, clearly struggling with what to say next. He finally ducked his head down, taking off his cap and running his hand through his hair uncomfortably.

After a pause that made it clear Bobby wasn’t going to continue any time soon, Dean demanded, “Bobby, what do we gotta do to trigger it?” His voice was low and fierce, and Bobby jerked his head up in response.

“You uh, you gotta…” he stopped again and put his cap back on. His gaze dropped to the painted symbol once more and, with a sigh, he stammered, “… in the water…” he waved his hands around meaninglessly, “to Sam.”

“Wait, you mean I have to be the one to…”

“Yes!” Bobby cut Dean off before he could complete the thought. “You need to be the one to… to do it to Sam.”

“In the water?” Dean asked, glancing towards it with a look of disgust on his face.

“Anything else?” Sam asked, finally getting his voice to work.

“Nope, everything else is in place. The demon saw to that. The demon very carefully saw to that. Since when did you boys start running around falling in with demon plans?”

“Bobby,” Dean replied, his voice low with warning, “We do this, and everything is undone here. Everything. This is a second chance for everyone. You tellin’ me you don’t want to take it?”

“Course I do… but…” Bobby trailed off, his troubled gaze falling once more to the blood.

Sam couldn’t look at Bobby any more, couldn’t deal with the raw torment he imagined behind Bobby’s lost look, and he jerked his gaze away, only to land on the stagnant water he could only barely make out in the low light. Sam felt dread coiling in the pit of his stomach and sweat springing up all over his body. The thought of submitting to Dean like that again… he wanted to, but… he took a deep breath, trying to push back the panic as Dean got up and started moving to the back of the cave.

“Let’s do this, Sammy.”

Sam couldn’t make himself follow immediately, and as Dean moved away, the whispered pleas of thousands of souls broke through the bubble of safety he’d created, threatening to drag him under once more. “Bobby?” he said loudly, hoping to drown them out, “what exactly is going to happen once we do this?”

Dean stopped and turned around once he got to the edge of the water, beginning to strip his clothes off as he watched Sam expectantly.

“Well, demon said that the reason Dean didn’t get to you in time to keep you at the library was because of the accident it caused. If you and Dean do this, that event doesn’t happen. So the creature won’t take you. Everything else will be averted.”

“But… won’t the creature just try again another time?” Sam asked.

Dean had stopped stripping and was standing there shirtless, waiting for Sam to come to him. Sam could feel panic prickling over his skin, a desperate, selfish certainty that he was about to lose everything that had ever mattered to him. This would be the last time they’d have sex. The last time he’d be able to lose himself in Dean. The last time he’d be able to hold his brother in his arms and not get hit for it. There were pieces of who he’d become that he didn’t want to lose. The bile in his stomach surged up an inch. He didn’t think he could do it.

Bobby stared at Sam for a long time, his face grave, his body still. Finally, strength washed from his features, leaving him looking tired and wrung out. “No.” Bobby replied heavily, “The creature came on you by chance. It would just find another victim.”

The painful wailing in Sam’s head reached a crescendo, and Sam slammed his hands over his ears, crying out with the agony that was building up lightning fast. Dean was back at his side in an instant, but Sam couldn’t stay in the cave any longer.

Pulling himself from Dean’s arms, he ran out of the cave. He kept going after he was out, travelling into the underbrush and running blindly. Leaves and branches tore at his clothes and skin as he passed, but he couldn’t slow down. He needed to lose himself in the calm of the forest, find a hole to crawl into and not come out until all his problems disappeared. A particularly long branch snagged his foot, and he went down hard, completely knocking the wind from his chest. He lay there for a few minutes trying to get the whirlwind of his thoughts under control. Helpless sobs hitched in his throat as he tried futilely to get his breathing calmed down enough to stand.

“Hey,” Dean called quietly, startling Sam… which was stupid because Sam should have expected Dean to follow him. Dean moved closer and crouched down, pulling Sam into his arms without comment. Sam sank into the embrace gratefully, let Dean stroke a soothing hand through his hair like he was still a child, let himself be held and cradled until all of Sam’s emotions had bled away and he was left feeling nothing but numb.

“We need to go back to the cave and finish the ritual,” Dean rumbled against Sam’s head. “Even if you panic… I know it’ll be hard, but it’ll be okay. You’ll be so much happier when we’re done, and you won’t even remember the sex when it’s over, so… it doesn’t matter. Whatever it takes. Bobby’s waiting for us.”

Sam shook his head. “I’m not doing it, Dean.” He knew to his core that the words were true as he said them, and the relief was so strong, so palpable, he felt light-headed and dizzy.

Dean pulled back, a look of surprise (and, was that hope?) on his face. “What do you mean, you aren’t doing it?”

“I’m sorry. I know you need me to do this for you, but… I just can’t.”

Dean closed his eyes and sighed, shook his head slightly before looking back. “You aren’t doing this for me, Sam. I already told you, I don’t want to go back to the way we were. We’re doing this for _you_. That creature. It took something from you. I want you to get it back.”

“I’m getting better,” Sam said flatly.

“Yeah,” Dean replied, raising his eyebrows. “But you’re never gonna be who you were…”

Sam shook his head, denying his brother’s claim. He didn’t _want_ to be who he’d been before. He wanted this. Sam fisted the back of Dean’s head and crushed their lips together in a harsh, claiming kiss. He lingered there for a minute and then pulled back roughly. “I don’t want to lose you!” he said angrily. “I don’t want to lose _us_.”

Dean’s voice rose to match Sam’s tone. “I don’t want to lose us either, damn it, but you don’t deserve to have had to go through what you did!”

Sam deflated, pain lancing through his chest. “Better me than someone else.”

“Why? Why is your life, your happiness, worth less than anyone else’s?” Dean asked angrily.

“Because I have you. Because I’ve already lived through it. All these months of figuring out how to live with it… I’d be going backwards, and that other person? The one it would have taken in my place? They would have suffered, just like I did. And then they would have died… alone, their soul cursed to hell. And then?” Sam’s voice broke, but he kept talking, forcing his emotions back down, “It would have taken someone else… and someone else… you saw all those bodies back there. You can’t ask me to let that continue… I won’t.”

Dean stared at Sam for a while, his face evaluating. Slowly, the resolve melted away, and Dean finally pulled Sam back into his arms. “It’s so hard to watch you going through this. I don’t know how to help you.” Dean’s whole body was shaking against Sam, and in that moment, Sam wasn’t sure who he felt worse for, himself, or Dean.

“It’s just… I need… god, I don’t want to lose what we have, but… no… no. You don’t get to sacrifice yourself like this. What about Bobby?” Dean demanded. Sam could see the fear in his brother’s eyes, could see the desperate need to fix everything because he wrongly saw it all as his fault. “The demon possession won’t have happened. We can take back what happened to him too. If you don’t care about yourself, at least care about him.”

Sam huffed out a breath – that was fear talking; Dean didn’t really mean it. He reached out and ran his hand along the side of Dean’s face. “Do you trust me?”

Dean didn’t miss a beat, “Of course I do.”

Sam sighed, knowing nothing more than that he had to convince Dean he was okay with this. It was the only way Dean would be able to live with it. “The demons are fucking with us, Dean, toying with us, and we don’t know what the hell they want. The demon said, ‘six hundred and sixty six roads’. The demons aren’t through with us. They want something from me; they’re planning to try and take it no matter how this all plays out, and there’s no guarantee that they won’t just go after Bobby again, and... Maybe next time, we wouldn’t be able to save him.”

Dean opened his mouth to interrupt, but Sam cut him off with a single, decisive, “No.”

Dean closed his eyes in defeat and muttered, “Shit, Sammy.”

“I know.” Both lost in their own thoughts, they shared a few moments of silence. Eventually, he heard Dean sigh. The sound was heavy with worry and concern. “I… I wouldn’t want to watch you go through something like this, either, but… You’re my big brother, Dean. You’re gonna get us through this. You always do.”

Dean snorted bitterly. “All I ever seem to do is fuck things up worse. I don’t… I think if I was in your shoes, I’d be dead or crazy by now. You’ve always been the strongest person I know.”

Sam laughed out, “I think the PTSD diagnosis would plant me firmly in the loony bin in any state.” Dean didn’t respond to his lame attempt at humor, so he added more seriously, “You sell yourself short way too much. You’d find a way to cope.”

Dean’s gaze didn’t falter. “Not without you, Sam. You’ve always been my strength.”

Completely embarrassed by Dean’s uncharacteristic sincerity, Sam buried his head in Dean’s neck and breathed in the comforting warmth that would always smell like home. They clung together, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees and feeling the gentle breeze bring with it the first hint of spring.

In that moment, it really did seem like everything was going to be okay.

They would _make_ it okay.


	8. Epilogue

Sam could see Dean’s back shining with sweat, his muscles rippling under his skin as he worked on the car outside. Sam hadn’t even managed to read two pages of the text he was supposed to be studying – the view out the window was too distracting. It was hot; South Dakota was having a record-setting heat wave, and it was easily over a hundred degrees outside. Dean had stripped his shirt off a couple of hours ago and tucked an edge into the back of his pants, letting the black splash of cloth trail down behind him. That was proving to be Sam’s undoing.

Dean stilled once more. It was at least the tenth time today that his gaze strayed down the driveway, every cell in his body waiting. Sam knew what the look was in Dean’s eyes, even though Dean’s face was angled away. Dean had been distracted and moody for days.

Sam threw the book on the table. The newspaper from the previous morning was still sitting there innocently. He knew what he needed to do. He snatched it up and moved decisively out the door.

Once he was through the door, Sam slowed; Dean was still staring off down the driveway and he was suddenly unsure of how to approach his brother. He hadn’t thought Dean was even aware of him until a quiet, “Hey…” in greeting startled Sam when he was only inches away.

This close, Sam could see that Dean’s skin was turning red. He reached out and stroked it gently with his fingertips, drawing out a barely audible hiss of pain from his brother. “You’re turning red,” Sam murmured, bending over his brother’s back and pressing his lips to the warm skin, parting them to let his tongue caress the salty warmth.

He felt Dean tense under his touch, and he pulled back, but left his hand lightly resting there, keeping the connection. “He’s not coming, Dean.”

“You don’t know that,” Dean growled, not shifting his eyes away from the driveway. “He could come driving down the road at any time now. He’s probably just been held up with a hunt gone bad.”

“Yeah, actually, I do know that he isn’t coming,” Sam replied flatly ignoring the second part of what Dean had said. “He’s more than two weeks late. He isn’t going to show.”

Dean slammed his palm against the curved edge of the hood. “Damn it, Sam, you don’t…” Dean sputtered, and then sighed heavily and turned around, leaning against the car. This side of the car was protected from the sun by the shade of the open hood, but it still had to be uncomfortably hot. Sam noted absently that Dean took care to make sure it was his jeans-covered ass that rested against the metal, not his exposed lower back.

Dean was glaring at him, but Sam’s attention was caught by the taut musculature of Dean’s chest. He let the paper drop to the ground and brought his hands up to lightly rest against his brother. He dipped down and flicked his tongue over one of Dean’s nipples, pressed his fingers against Dean’s pectorals and massaged gently.

“Sammy…” Dean breathed out. Sam couldn’t tell if Dean was warning him off or calling for more.

He slid his hands down to Dean’s stomach and dropped to his knees, running his tongue over Dean’s belly button, which was easily visible over the edge of Dean’s low-hipped jeans. He ran his tongue over and around and then inside, swirling it around the edges, and when he dropped his hands down to rest on either side of Dean’s hips, he could feel the jeans becoming tightly stretched.

He let his tongue trail wetly down, following the light path of hair that dusted Dean’s skin, and then mouthed Dean’s dick through the thick cloth. “God,” Dean moaned in pleasure, but it quickly turned to a whine when Sam reached up and popped the top button on his jeans. “Sam, stop,” he gasped out. “We’re too exposed here. Dad… Bobby…”

Sam released Dean, noting with satisfaction the small patches of wetness staining the material from both inside and out. Dean was definitely hard and aching at this point. Served him right for being so beautiful. Sam had been hard most of the afternoon – turnabout was fair play.

Sam looked up, finally meeting Dean’s gaze. “He’s not coming.” When Dean opened his mouth to argue, Sam hastened to add, “It’s better this way, anyway. You and me against the world, just like it’s always been… right?”

“Not always, Sam,” Dean bit back.

Sam couldn’t keep the flash of hurt off his face and he looked away. Dean flushed red. “I’m sorry. That was kind of dick. I… I didn’t really mean that. And that’s not really the point anyway. We’re a family. Families stick together.”

Yeah, like their dad had stuck by them when they were growing up, Sam thought, irritated, but he managed to keep his comment inside. “I don’t wanna fight, Dean,” he said instead. He picked up the paper he’d absent-mindedly dropped to the dirt and held it up. “Let’s get out of here. I found us a hunt. Easy stuff – ghosts down in Louisiana. Dad can always call us if he changes his mind.”

“Not that you aren’t pretty down there, but you wanna get off your knees, Sam? Bobby could come out any minute.”

“Seriously? You’re worried about Bobby? He hasn’t been out of research mode more than a handful of times since we got back, and even when he has made an appearance, I don’t think he’s said more than two words to either of us…”

Truth be told, Sam was worried about the man, but Bobby had waved off all of Sam’s attempts to get him to talk about what had happened, and Sam wasn’t sure what else to do.

Dean squinted towards the house. He looked uneasy… tense and unsure of himself. Dean wasn’t going to be able to let it go.

Sam finally took pity on him. “I’ll get off my knees if you’ll go inside with me – we need to get you out of the sun.” Sam stood and grabbed the front of Dean’s jeans, pulling him forward.

Dean glanced back at the car with a slightly frustrated look, but turned back without too much prompting and let Sam pull him into the house.

He glanced around worriedly when they got inside, probably looking for Bobby, but the house was quiet. Finally relaxing, Dean swung Sam around and pressed him against the wall next to the door. He placed his hands on either side of Sam’s neck and looked him in the eyes. “Hey, you know I don’t… I mean, I’m okay. With us,” Dean said softly, his voice filled with concern. He brushed his lips against Sam’s and added, “I didn’t mean to imply that I wasn’t, out there.”

“I know,” Sam answered simply. And it dawned on him with sudden clarity, he _did_ know. Dean loved him. This thing between them, it wasn’t something Dean was doing out of obligation. He wasn’t sure what had changed, but the nagging doubts he’d had about that since this had all started just… weren’t there anymore, hadn’t been there for days. Like a switch had gotten flipped in his brain and turned it all off, or something.

He pulled Dean in for a deep, exploratory kiss, relishing the taste and texture and smell, luxuriating in _Dean_ , before pulling back enough to whisper a breathless, “I love you.”

Dean smirked at Sam, but his response was sincere, “I know you do, man. Feeling’s pretty mutual.”

“Let’s go upstairs,” Sam suggested. “I can put lotion on your back, and… other places…”

Dean pulled out of Sam’s arms like a shot and was half-way up the stairs before he turned back and asked impatiently, “Dude, you coming, or not?”

“Right behind you,” Sam answered back, hurrying to catch up. _I’ll always be right behind you…_

 **  
_~Le Fin_   
**

  
_Art by Caelieth  
[](http://caelieth.livejournal.com/171819.html)_   


**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Notes and Thanks:** This whole verse started with the simple prompt that John finds out... yeah still trying to get there. There will absolutely be another story in this verse, because if there isn't, my friend might kill me, and I don't want her to go to jail. ;) Anyway, I'm pretty proud of this one, so I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> This verse started as a birthday exchange between [](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/profile)[**rivestra**](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/) and me. She's the absolute best friend a girl could ever have. She's my inspiration both inside and outside of fandom. I'm a better person because of her. She's the one that got me writing, she's the one that made this story as good as it is, and her WIP, post-apocalyptic, fuck-or-die, slave!fic, **[Winchester Synchronicity](http://rivestra.livejournal.com/1115.html)** , is way better than mine - so please check it out and tell her what your think! I promise you won't be disappointed.[](http://snarkgoddess.livejournal.com/profile)[ **snarkgoddess**](http://snarkgoddess.livejournal.com/) also deserves massive amounts of love. She held my hand and talked me down from the ledge more than once, and even though she sent me back tons and tons of changes, she managed to do it without ever making me feel like I couldn't do this. She's my biggest cheerleader and my most demanding critic all at the same time. Thank you, darling. You rock.
> 
> I'm truly privileged to have made so many good friends through fandom. I met [](http://locknkey.livejournal.com/profile)[**locknkey**](http://locknkey.livejournal.com/) during last year's big bang, and she's become an awesome friend. She read my story when it was still in its infancy, responded to my last minute plea for one more beta, and she cheered me on the entire time in between. I'm so glad I get to claim your friendship, baby!
> 
> Finally, I'd like to thank my big bang artist, [](http://caelith.livejournal.com/profile)[**caelith**](http://caelith.livejournal.com/). I was absolutely blown away with the art she created based on my story. The boy's love for each other is palpable in everything she created. I could stare at it all for hours (and I have ;) She totally went above and beyond for me, making not only art, but a soundtrack and a vid as well. I hope I'm lucky enough to work with her again sometime. She's truly generous and amazing. Go shower her with love! **Comments are love - Thanks for reading!**


End file.
